China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is one of the largest energy companies in the world with operations in 28 countries. In May 2017, CNPC announced it would invest $2 billion in an oil and natural gas block in the southern part of Peru. Beyond the recent investment, CNPC has had a presence in Peru for more than 20 years, including oil fields in the northern portion of the country. To optimize operations in 2009, CNPC ran a pilot test in Piura, Peru to find the ideal communication solution for monitoring, collecting and transporting data.
Piura is a coastal city located near the equator where the average temperatures hover around 95 degrees Fahrenheight. To connect the oil fields into the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system, CNPC needed a communication technology built to withstand harsh weather, such as high temperatures, large amounts of rain, wind and a variety of other environmental factors. The goal of the pilot was to have several test sites reporting to a gateway and then into a SCADA system to monitor several pumping devices and equipment including: Pump of Controller (POC), Pump Cavity Progressive (PCP), Balance Oil Recovery System (BORS) and plunger lift.
FHSS for Oil and Gas
In the Piura test case, the distances between links weren’t long, but depressions, canyons and steams made line-of-site (LOS) a challenge. CNPC, who tested multiple Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication solutions in Piura, found that FreeWave’s Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) technology solutions offered the most reliable connectivity in comparison to other solutions used during the test. FreeWave solutions also use repeaters that helped establish and maintain connectivity despite the lack of LOS. Additionally, the links were established easily and fast in comparison to other solutions that were a part of the test. During the entire three-month pilot, the FHSS-based M2M solutions did not lose communication or the ability to send data to the SCADA system.
Industrially hardened, ruggedized FHSS technology has proven to be reliable in in many oil and gas installations around the world. As the Industrial IoT (IIoT) drives connectivity, we continue to see the demand for reliable communication links in environments like Piura that can have challenging conditions. FHSS technology offers not only a reliable, easy to install communication link, but it easily integrates into today’s modern IIoT networks.
To get the full story about the test sites in Piura, read the case study: https://www.freewave.com/case-studies/china-national-petroleum-company/
