Reliable, cost-effective communications is a must for Oil and Gas exploration and production. With drilling and production sites frequently situated in the middle of the ocean, desert or other equally inaccessible location, a well thought out satellite telecommunications infrastructure can be the answer where more traditional methods of communication are either too costly or inadequate.

Private Mesh Network for Oil and Gas

A mesh network is by definition a decentralized architecture. Each remote site can communicate with any other remote without going through a central hub, thus removing any single point of failure. The system allows this connection among many users sharing a limited "pool" of satellite transponder space. The result is economical and flexible bandwidth sharing with a mix of voice, FAX, video and data traffic.

Example networks:

LUKOil in Russia

LUKOil, Russia’s leading oil producer, has a private network using PolarSat’s VSATPlus 3 mesh configuration that provides services at 50 sites all over Russia including oil drilling sea shelf platforms. The use of a satellite network as a solution to providing communications to remote sites, many of which are located in the middle of the ocean, enables LUKOil to continue to be a leader in their field. A further benefit of using VSAT technology, is the ease and speed of adding new sites. LUKOil has upgraded from VSATPlus II to VSATPlus 3, which is easy to do with this type of architecture. The VSATPlus 3 provided considerable greater throughput in the same space segment through the use of 8PSK modulation vs. the previously deployed QPSK

Zueitina Oil Company

Zueitina Oil Company (ZOC) deployed a VSATPlus 3 network (consisting of a HQ and 9 remote stations) in Northern Africa. This technology answered a number of ZOCs needs: The remote sites are easily relocated to new drilling sites as the need arises. Furthermore, if required, the network can be expanded by adding more carriers with no hardware change to the remote stations. The mobile station, a VSAT terminal mounted on a truck, is ideal for exploration. And, because of the reliability of the technology, accidents that occur in remote areas can be relayed to headquarters for quick medical response.