A communications system for a floating oil production facility

The Liuhua 11-1 Development Project is an oil production project in offshore China. This paper briefly discusses two aspects of the communications systems design and includes a discussion of the implementation to this point. The principal interest in the communications systems implementation is the deep water location and the use of floating, weather vaning, platforms. These offshore platforms are converted vessels, floating in close proximity to each other. The communications requirements include multiple LAN linkages, and voice with fax in English and Chinese. A satellite link was designed and implemented for the offshore to onshore link between sites in the People's Republic of China. It uses a geo-stablized platform for the offshore site and a China National Offshore Oil Corporation master earth station. This design and implementation is discussed in detail, the system being placed in operation this past Sumner, '95. The second system discussed is an omnidirectional microwave link, between the vessels. This second link will be started this spring, '96.