Middle East Petrochemical Plant

Background

The Middle Eastern Petrochemical plant operates onshore over a large terrain producing liquefied natural gas and natural gas liquids. Oil and gas revenues are significant in this region and provide a sizable portion of GDP for many Middle Eastern companies.

Robust communications in the oil and gas industry is of paramount importance to ensure all staff within the organisation is equipped with rugged and reliable communication tools to support real time collaboration and decision making. This not only improves productivity, but also improves safety levels. A vital part of driving efficient production processes involves extending communications safely into potentially hazardous areas. At every stage of the production process, strict safety measures must be maintained to prevent fires, explosions or environmental disasters. As the primary communication device for field workers, the integrity of professional mobile radios operating in hazardous areas must be assured.

The Challenge

With major expansion and investment on the company’s site and with further construction work in progress, the company created a demand to treble the number of users on the system from 200 to 600. As oil and gas operations are hazardous, it was crucial that the radio system could be seamlessly integrated with the current system with no down time. The company was seeking minimum user training and a seamless system expansion.

It required a communications supplier with a strong reputation in delivering mission critical solutions and committed to open standards in order to integrate with other technology systems being used in the company.

The Solution

The company selected Simoco to expand their Private Mobile Radio system that now comprises of a 16 Channel Simoco Xfin Blade MPT1327 trunked radio system, 600 x ATEX hand portable radios, mobiles installed in plant protection and emergency vehicles, desk top ‘fixed mobiles’ and IP connected PC dispatchers. The dispatch system incorporates voice recording utilising VHF marine base stations and dispatch consoles which allow direct communication to the vessels in the harbour. Simoco were pleased to complete the project prior to the COVID-19 lockdown, our engineers returned safely to the UK and are now providing 24×7 remote support.

Working closely with the customer to understand their organisation and requirement, Simoco put forward a comprehensive migration plan. This was agreed with the customer and Simoco Engineers designed, assembled, configured and tested the additional system infrastructure, antenna system, dispatchers and 400 ATEX hand portables. The system was installed, site acceptance tested and the system put into service.

The Results

The new system has trebled the capacity of the system allowing other staff to communicate clearly and reliably with the trunked radio system. Staff have peace of mind that communications will get through and as a result this has increased efficiency in operations with the availability of real time communication between different teams.

Features such as man down, lone worker, GPS, Bluetooth and emergency calling align with the company’s health and safety policies, and provide peace of mind for those in the field. Teams place trust in the new communications solution and are confident that that the new equipment will work in the harsh environments they are used to in daily operations. This is due to the reliable, high-performing hardware and technology from Simoco, as well as user training provided by Simoco engineers.