Satellite power

Martin Jarrold, Chief of International Programme Development at GVF (Global VSAT Forum) answers O&G's questions on how the worldwide oil and gas industry is harnessing satellite technology to explore new fields.

How has satellite communication technology evolved in recent years to address the modern needs of E&P companies - in particular the need to work in hostile environments?
Martin Jarrold. Mission critical operational success in the upstream E&P environment is certainly highly dependent on access to the most efficient information and communications technologies (ICTs), and to the wealth of sophisticated applications these technologies bring to the disposal of the teams who locate new oil and gas reserves and get them out of the ground and from beneath the ocean floor. This capability significantly reduces the amount of time and other resources wasted on drilling sites that don't have a strong yield potential. With exploration for new hydrocarbon reserves moving increasingly to dangerous and remote environments - where the extreme physical conditions of a hostile climate and multiple geographic/topographic obstacles are as challenging as the investment decisions that must be faced in the remote deployment of drilling equipment - satellite communications becomes even more of an imperative. Whilst it is certainly true of these imperatives that, comparatively, satellite and satellite-hybrid communications solutions represent a small fraction of energy companies' total CAPEX and OPEX, well-managed ICT networks can play a disproportionately great role in reducing expenditures not only in exploration, drilling, and production, but in every other area of operations. And now through the increasing power of ever-larger satellites, data compression and acceleration technologies increasingly efficient use of (shared) bandwidth, satellite latency mitigation techniques, earth station equipment prices and migration to IP connectivity the satellite communications industry is more able than ever to meet the complex and bandwidth-hungry nature of modern energy extraction industry data analysis applications, and do so very cost-effectively.

Considering the obvious benefits that satellite communication offers, what more do you think needs to be done in this area by both oil and gas companies and satellite service providers?
Clearly the oil and gas industry does maintain an acute awareness that improvement in its use of state-of-the-art communications technology is an agenda-topping issue. However satellite and satellite-hybrid communications solutions represent a small fraction of energy companies' total CAPEX and OPEX. However, well-managed ICT networks can play a disproportionately great role in reducing expenditures in exploration, drilling, and production, with the introduction of new mobile IP enabling technology bringing huge improvements in upstream productivity. Nevertheless, despite considerable advances in recent years, still further means of meeting an increasing demand for real-time information, modelling, visualisation and decision making tools are necessary. In fact they are vital because it has been estimated that the upstream industry "wastes" US$15 billion every year through uninformed decision making related to such industry activity characteristics as dispersion of sites exploration/drilling sites, frequent changing of locations, accessibility of locations, the need for the exchange of large volumes of data, access requirements to global customer hubs and network reliability. However, oil and gas companies Network Operations or ICT Managers do not have limitless budgets even in times of very high-energy prices. ICT budgets may grow at such times, but very rarely in proportion to the increase in price of a barrel of oil. Moreover, whilst they are ensuring that communications networking is reliable at all their operational sites, and whilst they are tackling the complications of constant site mobility, such managers are expected to distribute their available resources/services across more sites by increasing the efficiency of existing communications solution investment before there is any possibility of consideration of fresh investment in additional communications technology. Such consideration would then be given on the basis of an accurate assessment of just how operationally expensive it is to upgrade to, say, a higher bandwidth connection.

Apart from VSAT's traditional fields of applications in the oil and gas sector, such as SCADA and remote connectivity, which new applications are currently being put to the test by this industry?
It would certainly be true to say that the communications networking technologies and topologies that are now typical in the upstream of the oil and gas exploration production segment are very different to those of the past in which little more than narrowband SCADA and asset tracking applications featured. Typical now are the bandwidth-hungry, broadband internet dependent, suites of applications that feature multi-functionality for a range and diversity of oil and gas expert professionals involved in E&P segment. The networks supporting such applications must be highly reliable and scalable, as well as cost-effective, and provide maximised Quality of Service guarantees for the free-flow of voice and video as well as multiple, high-bandwidth, data-centric, applications. Networking hardware, particularly outdoor units - including antennas - must be robust and ruggedized to endure harsh environmental conditions. In the upstream there is a wealth of sophisticated applications used by teams of geologists, geophysicists, drilling engineers, seismic data analysts, etc., etc., who locate new oil and gas reserves and get them out of the ground and from beneath the ocean floor. These applications collect massive amounts of disparate data in multiple formats (including GPS, acoustic, compass and other sensor data), and that this data is number-crunched to generate various types of predictive analysis. Beyond this, at the very cutting-edge of E&P technology is the real-time streaming of data and video from the actual drill-bit, itself being steered through rock strata over broadband communications links. In the downstream, with particular reference to retail filling stations satellite networks are increasingly relied upon for transactional point of sale (POS) data, card verification, logistics data, price updates, orders/delivery information, video surveillance of forecourt pumps, broadcast of audio/video advertising content to retail sites, broadband Internet access, and large file transfers. But, it is not only the companies the "big names" of which we recognise as being at the very heart of the E&P segment. At a previous event in the GVF/UK-EMP series of Oil and Gas Communications conferences a speaker cited the example of a company operating out of Singapore which owns a fleet of service rigs, accommodation rigs and FPSOs. The satellite service provider in question had installed/deployed network connectivity across the fleet with fully dedicated satellite bandwidth over a Single Channel per Carrier (SCPC) link. Such an example is typical of the use of satellite right the way across the oil and gas sector.

What benefits can satellite solutions offer oil and gas companies in building sophisticated communication infrastructures to support the digitization of oilfields and a move towards the virtual oil company concept?
Certainly, system resilience/reliability, flexibility, and data security are imperative features of this digital oilfield, and certainly satellite solutions are best placed to offer these features, due to the fundamental ubiquity of satellite footprints and the more recent broadband/IP evolution of satellite connectivity. Only satellite can effectively offer real-time measurement and data monitoring and its real-time delivery from anywhere to anywhere, thus allowing the remote collaboration of the aforementioned domain experts in real-time and creating the reality of the Operational Support Centre, or OSC, where technology, work processes and infrastructure come together to facilitate the collaboration of experts in the support of multiple drilling operations.

Having noted all of this regarding satellite, it must be fully acknowledged that satellite-wireless technology hybrids do play an important role in first mile/last mile connectivity in the digital oilfield environment. Multi-platform communications solutions are quite naturally appealing to the oil and gas sector ICT solutions buyer precisely because the emphasis is on the solution, not the means to the solution, and this emphasis brings with it what may be called technology agnosticism in respect of Wide Area Networking, be it for the well-head, corporate offices, OSCs, etc.

Russia's sheer size and lack of adequate infrastructure in remote areas make it a perfect ground for deployment of satellite communication technologies. However, apart from some large-scale projects, the VSAT market in this region has grown slowly. What are the main barriers for the more widespread use of satellite solutions in Russia?
The (somewhat simplistic though fundamentally sound) conventional wisdom of the market is that competition drives up quality and drives down price, and more competition in the satellite marketplace is one thing that is certainly needed in Russia. This could be achieved by permitting international satellite operators landing rights as part of an overall liberalisation of the marketplace, thereby introducing not only constructive competitive pressures for Russia-based satellites, but also increased satellite capacity over the Russian territory. Of course, in the specific context of oil and gas, that territory goes a long way northward, well above the Arctic Circle where Russia - and other countries - has staked its hydrocarbon resource-hungry claim. There are two countervailing factors in play here. On the one hand Arctic Ocean oil and gas are very, very remote, and the conditions are often extremely harsh, ideal territory for deployment of a satellite-based communications infrastructure. But, above certain latitude the look-angle for satellite antennas becomes impossibly low, and up/downlinking to/from geosynchronous satellites over the equator cannot be achieved. There would be a case here of using satellite-wireless network hybrids, but also for using non-geosynchronous satellites and satellite constellations in low earth orbit (LEO), though this introduces the requirement for tracking antenna technology for fixed/non-mobile earth stations/terminals. Such systems feature the use of multiple satellites moving with reference to a fixed point on the surface of the earth, and so antennas have both to track a given satellite as it orbits and also switch from one satellite to another as one satellite passes over the horizon and another comes into range to take over the satellite link. The first of these approaches requires that there is no signal interference between the satellite and wireless technologies, and the second requires, even more than with geosynchronous-fixed systems, that the installation of the satellite equipment on the surface is carried out with a very high degree of professional installation competence. GVF has programmes in place to promote or facilitate each of these requirements, in the form of the satellite industry Satellite Spectrum Initiative, and the Installation and Maintenance Training Certification Programme, respectively.

About GVF

The Global VSAT Forum is an association of companies involved in delivering advanced digital fixed satellite systems and services to consumers and commercial and government enterprises worldwide. Martin Jarrold is in charge of the International Programme Development division at GVF which includes in its remit looking at the ways in which satellite technology can aid oil and gas companies. For more information contact Martin Jarrold at martin.jarrold@gvf.org.