Norway Meanwhile the Norwegian Oil Industry Association (OLF) is so concerned that the networks are running sub-optimally with different operators, that it has proposed setting up some kind of central network infrastructure for all of the oil and gas fields. OLF believes that a fibre optic network, connecting as many rigs as possible, is essential in ensuring that production can be optimized, and this means making maximum use of the available communications infrastructure, and never being beholden to one private company. The central operator would effectively buy the use of the infrastructure from the cable owners and then sell it as required.
BP to link Gulf platforms with fiber-optic cable By Mark Davidson (Reprinted with permission from Platts Gas Daily) BP will spend $100 million to lay an undersea fiberoptic cable across the floor of the Gulf of Mexico to help maintain communications among its deepwater gas and oil production platforms during hurricanes, a company official said Tuesday. Kenny Lang, BP’s vice president of Gulf production, told the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston that the firm plans to begin installing the cable in December and “light it up next summer.”
There are currently three networks in the North Sea, put in by a mixture of oil and gas companies (Statoil and BP), and private companies (North Sea Communications, and Data Marine Services, owned by Schlumberger). “It is important to establish such an integrated common infrastructure well ahead of the implementation of integrated operations in bigger scale,” says OLF. Currently there is a star-shaped fibre network in the Haltenbanken area on the North Coast of Norway, operated from a rig in Heidrun and connecting to shore. Currently it only serves Statoil rigs and bypasses BP (Skarv) and Shell (Draugen) rigs in the area.
He said the fiber-optic network, which will stretch from either Freeport or Corpus Christi, Texas, to Pascagoula, Mississippi, will provide an advanced communication link among all of the company’s platforms in the deepwater Gulf and with its operations headquarters in Houston. The London-based supermajor will own the network and use part of the bandwidth for its own communications and lease the rest to other deepwater Gulf producers. “Others like Shell and Chevron have approached us,” Lang said. The network will allow onshore operators to monitor what’s happening on the platforms during hurricanes when all personnel have been evacuated, as well as during normal operation, BP said. Currently, the rigs use microwave transmissions and satellite links to communicate with each other and
For the North Sea, the TampNet fibre structure (owned by Statoil), a linear network which connects to Kollsnes and Karstø on the Norwegian Coast, also linking to BP fibre cables connecting with Aberdeen, and North Sea Communications (NorSeaCom) networks, linking with Lowestoft. TampNet was established in January 2002, aiming to be an offshore telecom provider, serving central and northern North Sea, initially with five platforms connected directly to the system and 23 connected by radio links. North Sea Communications owns or leases a ring of fibre optic, going from the North Sea rigs to Aberdeen and Lowestoft in the UK, undersea to France, via land to Copehagen, undersea to Finland, via land to Stavanger in Norway, then to the North Sea rigs.
to operators onshore. “The problem with that is it doesn’t work during a storm,” Lang said. In order to maintain vital communication, the transmitter on the rig must remain in line of sight of the satellite. “During big storms, you have clouds come over that block the satellite,” he said. “There are periods where you don’t have communications.” In addition, with microwave transmissions originating in the deepwater Gulf, the signal is bounced from one offshore platform to another on its way to shore, Lang said. “If any one of the facilities gets damaged, you suddenly lose communications.” BP’s plans call for laying the fiber-optic cable on the sea floor at depths of about 6,000 feet — far from the reach of tropical storms raging on the surface. The offshore platforms will be tied into the fiber-optic 13