Unrepeatered Submarine Cable Technology and Its Impact on the Oil and Gas Industry by Paul Polishuk Introduction With the increased demand for oil and escalating gas prices, there is growing pressure on off-shore drilling and exploration to become more efficient and effective.. As the sensor technology for exploration becomes more sophisticated, there is also a need for real time processing of large amounts of data. Often the processing of the data is many miles from the drilling site, usually on land at a data center. The use of unrepeatered submarine cable technology can be used by the off shore oil and gas industry to extend their exploration and drilling distances, and develop undersea networks to transmit high speed data to data centers. This represents an opportunity for the submarine cable industry to take a proactive approach to undersea networks as in many off-shore oil exploration and production there are several different companies all requiring communications. For example, in the Gulf of Mexico alone, there are over 4,000 oil rigs. The industry will benefit from existing undersea
networks technology and that being developing by the research community undersea networks. This article is based on a recently updated IGI Consulting report. “Unrepeatered Submarine Cable Fiber Optic Systems.” and an excellent article on the subject by Marc Fullenbaum of Alcatel Submarine Networks in the May 2004 issue of “Sea Technology Magazine.” Costs of Unrepeatered Systems are Coming Down The cost of an unrepeatered system is different from a typical repeatered system because of its design and means of installation. In a repeatered system, cost breakdown is typically 30% for cable, 15% for marine installation, 40% for repeaters, 5% for terminal equipment, and 10% for network management facilities and miscellaneous costs. In an unrepeatered system, 30% of the cost is for cable, 45% for marine installation, 15% for terminal equipment, and 10% again for buildings and instillation. One of
the major costs of installation of an unrepeatered system is due mainly to the need for complete burial of the cable to prevent damage form fishing trawlers and ship anchors. The cable itself, therefore, is often a lightly armored cable, and often with a higher density of fibers some cables have been installed with up to 192 fibers). Marine installation technology is advancing at a pace equal to cable and terminal technology in many instances. Highly maneuverable sea bed tractors and remotely operated vehicles are useful for burial of cable and can often be deployed from shore or ship. As technology has been developed and introduced into submarine fiber-optic systems, unrepeatered transmission distances have steadily increased and prices have remained stable or have decreased.. As in repeatered systems, the maximum distances that can be traversed without repeaters is a function of bit rate and wavelength; the higher the bit rate, the shorter the distance. As illustrated in the following sections, developments in fiber optics technology increase both the length and usefulness of unrepeatered systems. Trends in Repeaterless Systems Technology Repeaterless fiber-optic systems by their very nature are highly dependent on technological advances. Advances in technology continue to push the limits of fiber-optic transmission, both in terms of system length and bit rate. The major 33