New article in The Petroleum journal: Reliable communication on the islands. No. 2 (80) April 2013

For eight years, ASTEL has been providing communication services at the facilities of the North Caspian project, including on artificial islands. The company's services meet both international standards and the very high requirements of the operator of the Kashagan project. Working at the legendary Kashagan has become an incentive for ASTEL to adhere to international standards, develop a range of services, ISO and OHSAS certification, and continuously improve the qualifications of its employees.

 

Kirill Elantsev, head of the International Projects Directorate of ASTEL, talks about the intricacies of working with NCPOC in an interview with Petroleum.

- Do you work not only in Kashagan, are there other projects in the country's oil and gas industry?

- ASTEL provides telecommunications and integration services to a large number of organizations in the so-called "oil-bearing" regions of Kazakhstan - in particular, in Aktobe, Atyrau and West Kazakhstan regions. Our clients include such concerns as Tengizchevroil and PetroKazakhstan. We also have experience in providing consulting services to a number of companies in the Karachaganak field. But Kashagan is our largest project in the oil and gas industry, and it is a long-term one with great prospects. Not every Kazakhstani company manages to work so long and fruitfully in the Kashagan project. What is the secret of your success? I think it lies in our internal politics.

 

The main value of ASTEL is its team. For us, the strict requirements of the project from the very beginning were not a stop factor: on the contrary, wanting to take this height and provide the required level of service, we made the efforts of the entire team and attracted additional resources from outside. In addition, compliance with high standards and a desire to achieve better results helps us win tenders from time to time and continue to cooperate. In addition, ASTEL personnel have developed partnerships and friendly relations with employees of AgipKCO, now NCPOC. We constantly consult each other on various issues. This exchange of experience, opinions in the field of IT, telecommunications has been and remains useful both for us and for our client.

 

- What is the peculiarity of working on the Caspian shelf? What challenges did your company face while creating and maintaining the network at Kashagan?

- The main difficulty eight years ago was the scale of the project, although at that time ASTEL had very serious experience in managing departmental multi-level ICT networks over a vast territory. The oil and gas industry, in turn, requires highly specialized systems and equipment. And most importantly, it makes high demands on the level and timing of the project, technical support, the level of training of specialists and their certification. In 2005, when we started cooperation with the AgipKCO consortium (at that time, the operator of the North Caspian project), only a few specialists in our ranks fully corresponded to the international level. And we had minimal experience of cooperation with foreign customers of this scale. At the stage of preparing for the tender, we focused our efforts on improving the qualifications of our employees - both engineers and installers and designers. In addition, in addition to the existing technical support centers, we have created round-the-clock specialized field teams to resolve emergency issues based on the regional department in Atyrau. For ASTEL, the start of work at Kashagan was a milestone in history, since we have mastered new standards, qualitatively changed the approach to work, developed and implemented specific products based on the technologies of our partners. For example, the wireless network created and supported by us covers an area of ​​more than eighty square kilometers in the Caspian Sea. This is the first time such a solution has been applied in sea conditions in Kazakhstan.

Today, all our operational activities in the field at any given time are associated with safety measures and the requirements of our client in this area. And these requirements are already included in our daily life. Is there a technical difference between offshore and onshore operations? Undoubtedly. There are challenges, and they are very specific. This is the constant presence of most of the telecommunication systems in an aggressive environment: salt, wind up to thirty meters per second in the conditions of the northern Caspian, where extremely low temperatures prevail in winter (up to -40C). Because of this, the requirements for technology are several times higher than everything that is usually laid down by the standards for telecommunication equipment and related elements of systems. The requirements for training and admission of specialists to an industrial facility of increased danger are also non-standard.

 

We are constantly updating the certification of personnel in the Marine Survival Program (BOSIET). The main group of artificial islands is located at seventy kilometers from the coast, people are delivered there by helicopters. As you know, the Kashagan field is unique due to the very high content of hydrogen sulfide, which has practically no smell. At the same time, it is extremely poisonous even in low concentrations - up to and including death. Therefore, each contractor employee arriving on the islands must undergo training in dealing with high concentrations of hydrogen sulfide.

 

All our personnel employed by NCPOC are annually medically monitored and recertified for exposure to hazardous environments. How do you protect your information? All technologies based on which we provide services to NCPOC are confirmed by international certificates for information security classes. Among other things, at the end of last year, ASTEL received an international certificate for information security standards ISO 27011. The implemented ICT systems have increased fault tolerance and are used in the defense departments of various Western countries. For example, some of the satellite solutions we have installed on ships are fully functional on the move and in the face of severe storms. Was your cooperation with the North Caspian project prompted to obtain certification in quality management and other ISO standards? Yes, including. Kashagan is operated by the NCOC consortium, which includes the largest oil companies in the world and Kazakhstan. Each element of the operational activities of these organizations is strictly regulated and supported by internal policies and procedures. This approach extends to contractors and subcontractors. Since information and communication technologies are the "circulatory system" of an oil company, the company simply cannot function without reliable communication services. The NCOC consortium is huge, and its activities extend from Europe to Kazakhstan.

 

Many subcontractors are in other countries. All of them - from workwear suppliers to drilling equipment - support existing international standards. Therefore, Kashagan naturally influences the improvement of the quality of services of all its partners. Now our company has already five international certificates in various fields (ISO 27001: 2005, ISO 20000-1: 2011, OHSAS 18001: 2007, ISO 14001: 2004, ISO 9001: 2008). As a Kazakhstani telecommunications integrator, ASTEL fully complies with the requirements of oil corporations and intends to further improve the quality of service to its customers.