Oil Containment Efforts Increasing Satellite Use, Say Executives

The personnel and data needs of the effort to contain the Gulf of Mexico oil leak have increased reliance on satellite communications in what is usually a very low-density region, said executives of major providers of satellite services there. But one of the two providers has had a much larger increase in demand than the other.

CapRock Communications, which provides satellite communications services to oil rigs around the country, has had a significant rise in short-term demand, said Ron Wagnon, general manager for North America. The spill has created “demand for higher capacity on some vessels,” he said. Many vessels that didn’t use very small aperture terminals have added them, and others have upgraded their services, Wagnon said. Presence of the support ships and command centers recently set up by BP and others in the Gulf region has led to several short leases, in which companies are paying for CapRock’s services month by month, he said. Bandwidth needs have grown, and CapRock has paid for some temporary increases in satellite capacity where use is the highest, Wagnon said. The need for streaming underwater video, sent to those involved and to the media, has also lead to increased satellite use, he said.

CapRock recently added inventory in preparation for the hurricane season, as it does every year, said Wagnon. The preparation has allowed the company to keep up with higher-than-usual equipment needs. The company also keeps some excess satellite capacity available in case of a big increase, he said. While the communication requirements are comparable to recovery efforts after a hurricane, the oil spill requires more bandwidth per site than the typical emergency, Wagnon said. Smaller competing satellite companies in the area have leased equipment from CapRock to handle increased demand, he said. CapRock was providing communications service to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in April.

Stratos has added only a handful of very small aperture terminals and hasn’t had a major jump in capacity use, said Jeff Wolf, director of operations in North America. Like CapRock, Stratos recently added emergency inventory for hurricane season, but it hasn’t needed to dip into it for the oil cleanup efforts, he said. The company’s recent work has been focused on adding communications options by making microwave data and voice services available to coastal and offshore operations, said Wolf. Stratos also deployed fixed and stabilized VSAT terminals along the coastline to help with containment, he said.