When the Lucas Gusher came in at Spindletop in 1901, igniting the Texas Oil Boom, drilling rigs primarily were driven by hardened men working with hardened steel and horsepower. Drilling technology has improved over time, and the pace has picked up significantly with the advent of computers.

As the number of transistors increased exponentially, and the speed of these silicon marvels went through the roof, advanced sensors and expert systems became just as important as grit and determination in the discovery and production of oil and natural gas. The constant improvement in computing horsepower predicted by Intel’s Gordon Moore has held true for a half-century and computers have had a dramatic impact on the energy industry.

As the number of computers on land and offshore rigs has grown, so has the need to interconnect them, both to other computers on the same rig and to those in distant offices. More often than not, satellite links provide connectivity to rigs in harsh and forbidding locations. The exploration and production sector of the energy industry is a large consumer of satellite services and hardware. As the technology continues to evolve, what will the rig of the future look like? 

More Demands, More Solutions

Drilling rigs are a beehive of activity with employees of multiple companies coming and going on a 24/7 basis. This includes the operator (the energy company); the drilling company, which provides the drilling rig and crew; and numerous oil field service companies which are contracted for by the operator. Depending on the well being drilled, there might be 30 to 100 workers arriving and departing from a rig on a daily basis. Many of them bring laptops and other computers designed for specialized tasks, creating additional demands for communications.

Rig rates vary depending on demand with the day rental rate ranging from about $20,000 a day for a small land rig to more than $750,000 a day for a deep-water, semi-submersible rig. Regardless of the rig type, energy companies constantly seek ways to reduce drilling time. To improve both the accuracy and speed of important drilling decisions, energy companies have increased their reliance on telecommunications to monitor the status of drilling efforts around the world on a minute-by-minute basis. Measurement while drilling data now is returned to a central location, where it is examined by geophysicist and drilling supervisors. In the past, an engineer overseeing a well would have to travel from the corporate office to the well site, delaying critical decisions a week or more. While the collection of measurement while drilling data is not new, energy companies and drilling companies are now setting up “smart centers” which allow engineers and geophysicists to oversee multiple wells. In addition to cutting decision times, the business processes now in place are much more scalable than in the past, allowing a senior engineer to oversee multiple wells at the same time. Reducing travel time to and from a rig as well as the head count on a rig, also has tangible safety benefits. Health, safety and environment initiatives have taken on far greater importance over the last decade due to the growing focus on the prevention of accidents and keeping track of employees and contractor working in hazardous environments.

Drilling companies once were geographically focused, concentrating on specific oil producing basins. The effort to mobilize an offshore rig from the Gulf of Mexico to the coast of West Africa or Egypt is extremely costly and rig moves were rare. As larger rigs were built which were able to drill in deeper waters — and the associated day rates went up — rigs began mobilizing with much more frequency. Within a short period, offshore drilling rigs became very transient, and their owners began seeking satellite solutions which would work around the world, not just in one basin.

As energy-related companies rely more heavily on enterprise resource planning software to run their businesses, they expect their workers to be equipped with all of the same computing tools and wide area network connectivity as someone at the home office, regardless whether the remote employee might be on a drilling rig in the middle of the Rocky Mountains or off the West Coast of Africa. Energy companies have extended their corporate information technology infrastructures to the far reaches of the Earth and also extended their information technology policies. Network security is an important topic when a dozen different companies must communicate over the same VSAT serving a drilling rig. How an authorized employee or contractor physically connects to the wide area network connection is also high on the list. 

Working with Video

The use of video in the energy industry has grown by leaps and bounds over the last decade. Video images from remotely operated vehicles working beneath the ocean’s surface help engineers assess construction and repair projects on the sea floor are a good example. The video images collected by the vehicles are uplinked from the support vessel the vehicle is tethered to and delivered to offices, and with interest in HD video growing, larger and larger files will be delivered. In other cases, video also has replaced surveillance flights in the Gulf of Mexico after hurricanes. Before helicopters can begin ferrying workers back to rigs and platforms, fixed wing aircraft are contracted to survey the structural integrity of the heliports on offshore structures to insure they are safe to land on. Video cameras equipped with tilt, pan and zoom can now survey potential damage to a heliport on a rig or platform much faster than aerial surveys, which often take days or weeks due to the demand for aircraft.

VLAN tagging allows satellite service providers to set up virtual LANs for the operator, drilling company and for service companies they both hire. “Depending on who the service company is working for, they will look either to the drilling company or the operator to provide connectivity for them to do their job,” says Keith Johnson, president of CapRock Global Energy Services. “In some cases, if the bandwidth requirement is large, the service company will contract for their own bandwidth. Communications technology has advanced to the point where it is easy to segregate the traffic, and we are seeing service companies get their own bandwidth much more frequently rather than relying on the operator or drilling company.” Johnson points out that Wi-Fi networks installed on rigs are becoming increasingly popular as the technology has improved. “Initially, there were challenges getting RF penetration into certain areas since rigs are all-steel structures. Now with WAPs (wide area access points) and smaller antennas, Wi-Fi is easier to deploy. Usually the larger areas, such as the galley and meeting rooms, are equipped first. This provides workers much more freedom, because they don’t have to go back to their rooms to plug into an Ethernet port. The deployment of Wi-Fi networks has also reduced cabling costs on a rig.”

Communications technology has advanced to the point where it is easy to segregate the traffic, and we are seeing service companies get their own bandwidth much more frequently rather than relying on the operator or drilling company.
— Johnson, CapRock Global Energy Services

Stratos is implementing a Wi-Fi platform dubbed Stratos HotSpot to rigs and platforms in the Gulf of Mexico as part of the company’s StratosMAX II WiMax service deployment. The service provides platform workers with voice service, high-speed Internet connectivity, Wi-Fi service and a wide range of mobile communications applications. The IP-based StratosMAX II service is consistent with the high-bandwidth, low-latency features of Stratos’ microwave services and is competitively priced against VSAT and legacy radio technologies. Stratos is extending this service across the Gulf of Mexico over the next several months and will have coverage to more than 300 platforms, and more than 50 base stations by the end of May.

Stratos provides Wi-Fi functionality to its customers’ remote locations using a network infrastructure that is separate from the customers’ network. It is separate from the point of Wi-Fi access on the platform, all the way back to the Stratos Internet backbone interfaces onshore in Louisiana, New York and Texas. “Remote professionals have become accustomed to using Wi-Fi services to work from home and from the road,” says George Head, Stratos senior vice president, broadband services. “Our goal is to provide offshore workers with that same ease of access and speed.” 

Crew Welfare

Another large challenge facing the energy industry is the graying of the work force and the need to attract workers from Generations X and Y to work on drilling rigs, which often lack many creature comforts, such as Internet connectivity. Crew morale is an important subject in the onshore drilling market, and today’s workers and the workers of the future no longer are satisfied to work for two weeks straight on a rig with no contact with friends and loved ones like their fathers did. They expect to have access to the Web to pay bills, socialize with friends, attend distance learning classes and watch movies. Life without Internet access simply is not appealing and employers are beginning to respond. “We see rig owners beginning to segregate slices of bandwidth for the crew’s use during breaks in their shifts,” Johnson says. “This bandwidth is typically segregated from the corporate network. A worker may want to surf the Internet or make a call back home. All of these applications require bandwidth, so it is important to set up quality of service policies to avoid problems. Since the amount of bandwidth allotted to the crew is limited, these policies will mitigate potential contention issues. In addition to the quality of service policies, general use guidelines need to be followed amongst the crew so that everyone has access.

Johnson also sees the success of CapRock’s crew infotainment service, which includes video on demand, satellite television and training, all bundled into a comprehensive service offering. “The service truly looks and feels like what you would get on a hotel television. The crew can switch between satellite television or a movie, or they can access company training materials. They even get a scrolling information screen to let them know where meetings are taking place. This is broadcast to every room so you don’t have to go to the galley or a meeting room to watch a company-wide video or safety training information, for example,” he says. 

Seeking More Tech Gains

Ever vigilant in their quest to increase decision quality and decrease decision times, energy companies are investigating a number of new initiatives on rigs. The use of RFID (radio frequency identification) is one technology being studied by energy companies, both large and small. RFID tags aid in the tracking of people and assets, and they enhance existing ERP and asset tracking systems. RFID technology is affordable and quick to deploy, with RFID readers needing only a 12 volt or POE (power over Ethernet) connection and network connection.

Down-hole instrumentation likely will take a quantum leap forward with the development of down-hole fiber optic sensors. The amount of data from each well is anticipated to be 2 terabytes per day. This amount of data will require some pre-processing at the rig site before it is sent to the supercomputers for additional number crunching, but it is easy to see these initiatives will drive additional demand for bandwidth.

The development of collaborative systems on drilling rigs is one of the most important trends of the future. Expect to see more work done onshore through real-time data centers. The development of high-speed satellite links allows computers to handle more of the load on a rig, which translates to smaller crew sizes. Energy companies are tight-lipped about these developments and many companies are developing customized applications. The technical resources needed to drill a well no longer have to be located on the rig and can be relocated at a company office. The development of these systems will create additional demand for satellite bandwidth.

Satellite links connect drilling rigs around the world, allowing engineers and geophysicists to augment the tool pusher’s expertise, which in turn leads to better and faster decisions. The greater reliance on computing systems will eventually lead to smaller crew sizes. As computing capabilities have advanced, the amount of data to be processed on a rig and reviewed has increased. This has increased the demand for satellite bandwidth, with multi-megabit circuits now commonplace. Satellite modems and stabilized antennas have improved to provide higher throughputs and hardware manufacturers are being called on to develop even higher throughput solutions. Expect these trends to continue.

The rig of the past was fueled by grit and determination. The rig of the future will rely heavily on computers, sensors, instrumentation and expert systems to help cut drilling time and make rigs a safer place to work. All of this bodes well for the satellite sector.

Greg Berlocher has been active in the satellite industry for twenty five years and is the President of Transcendent Global Networks LLC.