Oil & Gas Market Opportunities
As the telecom industry continues to strengthen, buoyed by a growing demand for new IP-based communication services, subsea cabling companies should not ignore the growing market opportunities which the oil and gas industry has to offer. Whilst cabling maintenance and installation services obviously have to be adapted to reflect the different challenges this sector presents, such as connecting power cabling to an oil platform, the development of Global Marine Systems Limited shows that telecom cable installation experience and technology can be successfully applied to the oil and gas industry.
By John Golding
In recent years, global energy markets have boomed and oil, gas and electricity prices are continuing to rise. By adopting a pragmatic approach to subsea cable contracts, Global
Marine and its joint venture partners, SBSS and NTTWE Marine have been able to tap into the knock on demand for oil and gas platform cable installation and maintenance services. This has included work in diverse locations such as China, Russia and the North Sea.
But what does this type of work involve? Typically, it could be laying a composite cable which provides power and fibre optic control capabilities to an oil or gas platform, as these types of platforms require numerous offshore staff to operate many of the control functions. By installing fibre optic cable connectivity back to the mainland, many of these functions can instead be controlled from on land, saving the platform operator considerable time and expense through having more of their staff onshore, rather than on the platform.
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