The oil and petroleum industry requires safe, robust, and reliable communications to support efficient day-to-day operations, enhance productivity, and to coordinate a fast and effective response to any emergency. Digital two-way radio solutions using intrinsically safe devices enable workers to communicate safely even in potentially explosive environments.
Efficient communications are essential to the smooth and safe operation of oil and petroleum facilities. This is the case all along the supply chain from exploration, extraction, and refining to transportation, product manufacturing, and distribution to power stations, industrial sites, homes, and petrol pumps.
Installations are complex and the materials involved are hazardous, so very high levels of safety are required to protect the workforce, facilities, and the wider environment. Machinery and operational processes must be closely monitored and critical performance data sent to control centers, often in real time.
The workforce needs highly available, highly resilient communication systems, so they can stay in touch with each other at all times and carry out their work efficiently and safely. Digital two-way radio networks based on the TETRA or Digital Mobile Radio (DMR) standards are the best way to ensure this.
A private two-way radio network enables signal coverage and capacity to be tailored to the exact requirements and configurations of any oil or petroleum installation. The network is fully controlled by the user organization without the need to rely on third party providers. The solution provides wide area coverage for secure voice and data communications across dispersed facilities in different locations.
Hytera terminals are rugged, durable, and easy to use with a long battery life and noise cancelling technology to provide loud, clear audio. They also feature GPS location technology, so workers can be tracked and monitored, especially when working alone. Personal safety features such as Emergency Button, Man Down, and Lone Worker protection alarms are also available.
Oil and petroleum installations are potentially explosive environments. Mobile phones and ordinary radios can create a spark, which may ignite explosive gases, vapors, or combustible dust. However, Hytera has developed ATEX intrinsically safe, anti-explosion TETRA and DMR terminals and accessories (including wired and wireless earpieces), which enable safe communications in these hazardous environments.
Hytera offers the first ATEX radios to be certified for use in Intrinsically Safe Zone 0, where high levels of hazardous product are continuously present, as well as the more usual Intrinsically Safe Zones 1 and 2. The radios also conform to the ‘ia’ certification, meaning the radio circuit has three protective measures, allowing for the occurrence of two faults during operation without risking the user’s safety.
Another benefit of deploying digital two-way radio networks is that one radio channel can be allocated to collect and send back SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) information. They can also be used to control and automate oil and petroleum field production processes and parameters, including flow, pressure, vibration, and temperature in remote locations from a single central point. The network can also transmit alarms in the event of machine failure, fire, leak, or spillage.
Two-way radio systems can also be integrated with other technologies using Hytera unified communications platforms and dispatch systems. An oil facility can connect multiple vendor systems and devices, including DMR, TETRA, cellular and PSTN networks, PA intercoms, CCTV and mobile video cameras, and a host of sensors and alarms.
For example, Hytera provided an integrated broadband LTE and narrowband TETRA solution for Russian oil and gas company Tatneft. Hytera multi-mode TETRA/LTE terminals allow workers to access both voice and data services on the same device. Terminals support a workflow management application to assign tasks to the workforce and receive status updates, work completion messages, alarms, and access SCADA data from the field provided by Hytera BT500 Radio Data Modems.
Hytera has considerable experience of deploying communications for oil and petroleum customers around the world, including supplying two-way radio networks and explosion proof devices for Abu Dhabi Oil Company, the Saudi Aramco Jubail Refinery Company, and for SONAREP Oil & Gas Company in the Republic of the Congo. Hytera’s flexible approach enables it to create bespoke solutions to accommodate the needs of any oil and petroleum customer.
About Hytera
Hytera Communications Corporation Limited (SZSE: 002583) is a leading global provider of professional communications technologies and solutions. With voice, video and data capabilities, we provide faster, safer, and more versatile connectivity for business and mission critical users. We enable our customers to achieve more in both daily operations and emergency response to make the world more efficient and safer.
