EXECUTIVE
FORUM Olav Harald Nordgard TampNett AS Olav Harald Nordgard is a Special Advisor at TampNett AS in Stavanger. TampNett is owned by Statoil, and operates a fibre cable communication network in the Norwegian sector of the northern North Sea. Mr. Nordgard is a graduate in Control System Sciences from the University of Trondheim, and has an M.Sc. from the University of Minnesota. He headed the Control Systems Group at NEBB for 10 Years. He worked for 6 years as head of Telematics at the Norwegian National Power Company, and 4 years as head of the same department at the Norwegian National Grid Company. He was instrumental in establishing several North Sea off-shore fibre cable systems. He also headed the strategy group of the international electric energy sector, CIGRE, on commercialization of the telecom sector.
It is generally anticipated that improved ways of operating oil and gas platforms will come into use over the next years. These improved ways of operation will require much higher communication capabilities than earlier. Furthermore, this development will significantly increase the dependency on the proper functioning of the installed technical systems, which in turn will result in strong requirements to the availability of the communication systems.
Benefits Provision of high capacity and very reliable communication solutions between offshore and onshore may bring a number of benefits, ie: • Full integration of off-shore and onshore IT support systems • Moving tasks from off-shore to onshore • Providing on-shore based competence to off-shore locations, without flying the expertise there • Moving off-shore generated information to on-shore for data processing, and returning processed data to offshore Effects of moving tasks to shore could be: • Some personnel may be moved onshore • Better safety due to less personnel offshore and less personnel transported by helicopters
• Cost reduction • Extending the field life by improving the profitability of offshore installations further into the tail of the production period Moving onshore based competence on-line to the offshore installations, such as for instance the transfer of pictures/video of objects/ materials that needs to be investigated from offshore to experts onshore, rather than moving the experts offshore, resulting in: • Access to experts that may be located far away. • Quicker analysis of a situation. • Better utilization of available expertise. Moving data on-line from the platforms offshore to on-shore for data processing and evaluation, allowing for instance: • Continous analysis of geological models while the drilling is ongoing, possibly giving better hits in the hydrocarbon bearing layers. • Continous analysis of the reservoir models while the production takes place, possibly giving a better drainage of the reservoir
Current types of high capacity applications As high capacity communication has become available to a number of offshore installations in the North Sea, there has been a stepwise increase in the application of such capacity. 12