The remote Exxon Neftegas Chayvo oil field on Sakhalin Island, just off the east coast of Russia, has deployed TETRA technology from Zetron for its safety and operational communications.

Sakhalin Island lies to the north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido, along the eastern coast of Russia. The island is 948km long from north to south, and 27-160km wide from east to west. It is a mountainous environment with a climate of extremes  -50藲C in the winter with up to five metres of snow and 40藲C with very high humidity in the summer. 

The oil field’s production platform, onshore processing facility and oil terminal have each been equipped with Zetron DCS-5020 Digital Consoles linked by E1 circuits. The digital consoles give operators control over all marine-band UHF, air-band VHF and MTM700 TETRA radios, as well as land-line telephony. 

In addition, Zetron Model 390 remote desktop controllers are deployed on the oil field’s production platform to give workers and safety staff fully-functional access to the TETRA network without the risk of localised RF energy causing an explosion.

Oil was discovered on Sakhalin Island in 1880 and potential recoverable reserves from the north of the island where Chayvo is located are thought to be 307 million tonnes of oil and 485 billion cubic metres of gas. 

The supply and build-out of the communications network was carried out by Zetron integration partner Saga whose engineers used the DCS-5020’s customizable displays to create a common desktop that looks and functions exactly the way Exxon Neftegas operators want. Through touch-screen virtual buttons the DCS-5020 allows control of conferencing, patching, memory dialling, alarm monitoring, alpha-searching of a directory, and emergency group calling. It enables operators to manage up to 30 different radio and telephone channels through a touch-screen display. 

The Zetron Model 390 Desktop Remote has the form factor of a conventional desk phone, but gives users access to Motorola MTM5400, 800e, 800, 700 and 300 functionality through a dedicated interface. Up to 15 Model 390s can be connected by conventional Cat 5 cable to a single TETRA radio located up to 600 metres away, greatly reducing deployment and installation costs, and enabling RF emissions be kept away from people, sensitive equipment and hazardous environments.

Mikhail Rybachenkov, of Saga, commented: “These two key pieces of Zetron technology have enabled us to deliver a very capable solution to Exxon Neftegas. Every day, this solution helps ensure the safety and efficiency of operations in this very challenging environment.”