A study revealed that the principal area of concern for the
experts at the central office related to coordination between the central office and the rig. Moreover, the ONGC personnel were required to be physically present to monitor the equipment, drilling, as well as the control room.
Infrastructure
The company deployed PictureTel's system 4000 model 200 ZX with 30 frames per second at the central office at Vasudhara Bhavan, Mumbai, and at the three rigs, namely, BHN, BPA and Heera. Other equipment used for the solution were video codecs; camera-main, auxiliary and document; Virtuoso audio package; Sony monitors and handycam; VCRs; PCs and others. Radio modems and satellite link-ups using Comstrem satellite modems provided the backbone for the complete connectivity. The total cost of the VC solution was around Rs4 crore.
Benefits of the project
Before the installation of the VC system, an average of around five helicopter visits daily were made from the central office to any of the rigs. This cost the company around Rs5 lakh per day. Also every time there was a snag at one of the offshore processing plants, the engineers were flown to the platform to locate the fault and rectify it, further increasing the cost. Other benefits which cannot be quantified are the life cost of personnel. During bad weather, monitoring often came to a standstill jeopardizing the life of personnel at the rigs.
Case study:ONGC - A rig not too far
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