Petrobras is one of the world’s biggest oil companies and one of the biggest companies in Latin America. The company had a net profit of around $36 billion in 2012, which was down on 2011. Petrobras’ total oil and natural gas production in Brazil averaged 2.441 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in December 2012, up 3.4 percent on November 2012.
   The company has many ambitious projects on the go for 2013. For example, it has recently started up the platform Cidade de São Paulo. In January, it initiated the commercial production of Sapinhoá field, located in block BM-S-9, in the pre-salt of Santos Basin. Cidade de São Paulo is a FPSO platform (Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading). It is anchored at a water depth of 2,140 meters, 310 km off the coast, and is capable of processing 120,000 barrels of oil and 5 million m3 of gas per day. It is this type of platform where Petrobras will need state-of-the-art communications infrastructure.
    Like many oil companies, using satellite has become a key part of its operations. Firmiano Ramos Perlingeiro, head of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) at Petrobras says the company sees satellite as a key solution when drilling for oil.
    He says, “Petrobras uses several types of telecommunications solutions to meet their needs, selecting the most appropriate ones according to the requirements and costs involved. They are: satellite, fiber and microwave links. In onshore operations we have the predominance of fiber and radio links. However, in offshore units, the satellite solution is still mostly used. We believe that satellite will still be the main solution in offshore communications, due to ongoing technological evolution, the need for mobility, in many cases, and the high investment costs required for other types of solutions.”
   The company makes ongoing investments into communications infrastructure. According to Perlingeiro, in the last five years, the investment in telecommunications of Petrobras has varied between 0.6 to 0.9 percent of total investments that Petrobras has made. Perlingeiro believes this scale of investment will continue over the coming years.
   Despite the onset of more fiber in the region, Perlingeiro admits satellite will “remain important” to the company. “Satellite solutions will remain very important to us, as much as it has been in the past. Petrobras has an optical fiber ring of 500 km in the Campos Basin connecting several rigs. This ring may be extended for other units in the future, but it depends on the business evolution and the economic feasibility.We expect providers of satellite communications solutions higher performance and low delay in communication, and mainly, lower prices,” he says.
   Video is also becoming much more part of the equation. “There is no doubt that video communication is increasing in the offshore operations. In addition to traditional videoconferencing, video on demand, collaboration, surveillance and safety, we will have new applications such as digital oil fields, control and monitoring,” says Perlingeiro. “In my opinion, although there is a significant growing demand for bandwidth, it cannot be considered as exponential.”
   While the company is making investments all across in Latin America, its main focus will be exploiting oil reserves off the coast of Brazil. The company operates in most countries in South America, and needs telecoms networks for all of their activities here. According to the company’s own investment plan, its largest projects are in Brazil, and these are mainly the exploration and production in the pre-salt area, and new refineries in Northeastern Brazil and in Rio de Janeiro. Because of the size of Brazil, satellite and VSAT in particularly, will play a key role for Petrobras here. Perlingeiro believes Petrobras’s demands for satellite are only likely to increase. He says, “Brazil is a country of continental dimensions with a great need for communication and integration. Besides, the growing demand for mobility can also increase the use of satellite communications. Demands for new offshore exploration of pre-salt reserves are a strong reason for using VSAT. There is no doubt about the importance of satellite communication for the oil and gas industry. I believe VSAT will be more attractive.”
   The company is ambitious and likely to a key buyer of satellite services and solutions. In terms of the challenges ahead, Perlingeiro adds, “The greatest challenge of our engineering team is to design and implement solutions to the telecommunications network, to support the company’s new facilities, fulfilling the planned cost and time. In addition, our projects must meet the industry’s best practices and rely on international metrics with the best benefit for the business.”