Eyes in the sky

Satellite systems are an essential communication feature for many oil and gas companies in areas such as the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea and also in the emerging oil and gas markets of the Caspian and North Africa. Until recently, the broadband satellite industry has catered for specialist industries, and as a result equipment has been expensive to purchase; however, this trend is reversing as satellite becomes more commercial. It’s good news for the oil and gas industry, with equipment costs decreasing significantly.

In many ways, satellite is the perfect answer to some of the challenges faced by venturing further into the unknown, enabling better coverage, reach, safety – and, consequently, results. “It is now more cost-effective for organisations to go into deeper water and into new emerging markets,” explains David Hartshorn, Secretary General of the Global VSAT Forum. “As they do so, it takes them into harder to reach areas – places where there have not been operations previously and where an extended reach is required. So even if it was difficult before, it’s in the process right now of getting even more difficult.”

Broadening horizons

Fortunately, as the oil and gas industry moves into emerging markets, state-of-the-art satellite solutions are providing a response to the challenges posed. Africa is one region that has long posed a notorious operational challenge. Delivering enhanced communication services to the continent would bring numerous benefits, although to date satellite deployment has been marred by a number of teething troubles. First, in 2006 a satellite was launched with the intention of delivering primary coverage of bandwidth for Africa called the NSS8. Frustratingly, the satellite failed to reach orbit. “Many of the companies on the ground, including the oil and gas sector, had been counting on access to that bandwidth,” explains Hartshorn. “The problem is that there is a capacity crunch with far more demand than supply at the moment. Along with this there has also been a price increase on satellite bandwidth in Africa. The satellite industry has begun responding in various ways to address this crunch in terms of the earth station equipment being used – state-of-the-art modem equipment that can allow for more efficient use of the existing bandwidth to keep the cost at a minimum level. In addition, the satellite operator community has been making announcements about new capacity to be launched. Interestingly, some of this new capacity is being launched by African interests themselves, which is a first.”

There are in fact a number of operators who are eager to satisfy the growing requirements on the African continent. One of the first launches took place in May 2007 from Nigeria, with the orbiting satellite already enabling services that can potentially be used by the energy sector. RASCOM, another satellite platform, is scheduled for launch at the beginning of 2008, which will have pan-African continental coverage in C and KU band.

The beauty of satellite service is that it is cost-insensitive to distance, so regardless of location costs will remain on the same level. As Hartshorn explains: “When you have coverage by a satellite, it’s either covering an entire nation or an entire region. In the case of a C band global beam, the satellite will be able to ‘see’ an entire hemisphere. So any site can communicate with any other within the beam.”

Recently, there has been a noticeable acceleration in the hybridisation of satellite services with other types of telecom tools – for instance, satellite being paired with fibre. “We’ve seen big deployments of fibre to support both onshore and offshore platforms in the patch,” says Hartshorn. “Then you get satellites being used in tandem as a complimentary technology with fibre.”

Wi-MAX

Wi-MAX is a potentially ‘disruptive’ technology that could make a big impact in the oil and gas industry over the next few years. “Wi-MAX is already being rolled out and is a very similar type of architecture to that which we have seen with GSM,” enthuses Hartshorn. “It has real potential and is a proven architecture in the GSM world. By putting a Wi-MAX base situation into a remote area (e.g. a platform anywhere in the world offshore or onshore) you can then backhaul the traffic from it back to the public network onshore.”

Despite the benefits this type of architecture can bring to the offshore environment, Hartshorn believes there are a number of related issues that are worth considering. “One of the biggest problems is that Wi-MAX systems interfere with satellite services in C band,” he says. “This is an issue that everyone in the offshore environment needs to be aware of as they look to draw upon the synergies of Wi-MAX and satellite.”

Chevron is one company that has already experienced problems in this area. After three years of preparation to deploy a new satellite system, including sourcing licenses and training people on the ground to deploy the network over numerous countries in the African continent, the company discovered that the network was suffering from a great deal of interference from Wi-MAX services also operating on the same band.

Although this interference is a potential cause for concern, a recent report by Northern Sky Research revealed that Wi-MAX presents more opportunities than threats to satellite communication. Hartshorn agrees. “Wi-MAX and satcom are a natural marriage in very much the same way as satellite has had a natural marriage with the GSM industry for more than a decade,” he says.

To highlight the benefits of this synergy, the Global VSAT Forum has been working in collaboration with the Wi-MAX Forum to heighten awareness among existing or would-be Wi-MAX operators so they can begin to utilise these services in the same way as GSM operators have done. “We’re trying to get in front of the oil and gas sector and tell them that Wi-MAX is being rolled out,” continues Hartshorn. “In a remote deployment, there is the possibility to backhaul the traffic through a satellite, and this has already begun in some instances. The only catch is that you have to make sure you are not running the Wi-MAX service anywhere in range because otherwise it is going to interfere with the satellite service.”

Skills shortage

The looming skills shortage poses another challenge, as many platform and onshore employees reach retirement age. This is likely to have a significant impact, particularly when it comes to utilising communication technologies in the future as the industry struggles to cope with this vacuum. “What this means is that oil and gas companies need help in getting the most cost-effective training of new people in the offshore environment and onshore,” says Hartshorn. “It also means they are looking for ways to pull out human resources off the offshore rig. Instead, if they can have remote monitoring and remotely managed operations (i.e. a central network operations centre onshore with remote monitoring and operation of certain offshore features) then they will do.”

Hartshorn predicts that in the future satellite will be used more extensively by the oil and gas industry. He comes to this conclusion after hearing what the industry has been saying itself over recent weeks and months and envisions a further marrying of tools together. “This will result in the industry having the most cohesive, integrated, single platform solution to enable them to drive global operations right down to the local level in the oil fields, whether it’s offshore or onshore, and that has to be by definition complex. Communications in the energy sector will get more efficient and will rely less heavily on human resources in remote areas. We’ll see increased levels of remote monitoring and remotely managed operations that will enable them to cut costs while maintaining a high level of reliability and operational efficiency.”

The digital oilfield defined
David Hartshorn explains…

The digital oilfield has for years been the buzzword in the energy sector. However, it’s a moving target and not particularly well defined. There are probably as many definitions for the term as there are people defining it. Despite the confusion, the digital oilfield will inevitably come to involve a variety of different telecom tools. There simply is no silver bullet that will get everyone to the same point. For instance, a fibre ring won’t solve all of the offshore problems. This is also true with terrestrial wireless, GSM, Wi-MAX or 4G. None of these services are going to singlehandedly enable the energy sector to reach the digital oilfield goal. The same is also true with satellite as it is impossible for it to do everything that is necessary to make an oilfield go digital. What’s needed is a combination of all these types of tools in tandem. The energy sector and the communications service providers will therefore need to address interoperability issues. They are going to be looking continuously at standards as a possible solution to help get the right mix between proprietary systems and standard space, open architectures. All of these things are going to play a part in trying to reach this ideal, fuzzy definition of the digital oilfield.