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Maintenance and Support for Pipeline Telecomms

The Client: BP

BP (British Petroleum), one of the world’s seven oil and gas “supermajors”, has been present in Azerbaijan for almost three decades. BP Azerbaijan aspires to be a valued, trusted and long-term partner in the development of Azerbaijan’s hydrocarbon resources. It is committed to conducting a safe and sustainable business that benefits all its stakeholders and society as a whole.

Business Challenge

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline carries oil from Azeri-Chirag-Deepwater Gunashli (ACG) field across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. It connects Sangachal terminal on the Caspian Sea coast to Ceyhan marine terminal on the Turkish Mediterranean coast. With its 1,768 km (1,099 miles) length, BTC is the second longest oil pipeline in the former Soviet Union, after the Druzhba pipeline. BTC was inaugurated in Azerbaijan on May 10, 2005, and the first oil reached Ceyhan on May 28, 2006.

The South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) exports Shah Deniz gas from Azerbaijan to Georgia and Turkey. The pipeline starts at the Sangachal terminal and follows the route of the BTC pipeline through Azerbaijan and Georgia to Turkey, where it is connected to the Turkish gas distribution system.

When laying BTC and SCP, BP installed SDH equipment and fibre-optic cable whose length is equal to the length of the pipelines. The SDH transmission network handles all the operational data of BP oil production and pipeline facilities in Azerbaijan and Georgia. As any other critical telecommunications infrastructure, BP SDH infrastructure requires proper maintenance and support

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Solution

As a result of a competitive tender in 2007, ED took part of the BTC/SCP project as a BP subcontractor. In 2009, following another tender, ED was selected as a direct BP contractor to provide maintenance and support for all telecommunications infrastructure, and services along the pipelines. We have provided excellent support and services to BP for many years.

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 Business value

The support and maintenance delivered by ED enabled our client to enhance business value by achieving the following goals: 

  • Lengthening the lifespan of assets
  • Decreasing unplanned downtime
  • Eliminating unexpected outages and replacements
  • Improving customer satisfaction 


Technologies

SDH, Fibre-optic