BW Offshore advances digitalisation, connectivity across FPSO fleet

BW Offshore has moved to enhance connectivity of all its operating floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels to digitalise offshore operations and enable analysis of real-time data.

It has signed a five-year framework agreement with Tampnet for communications services to the FPSO fleet regardless of where they operate.

This is part of BW Offshore’s digitalisation strategy and need for resilient, high-capacity connectivity to collate and analyse real-time data and to enable cloud-based applications.

“Reliable connectivity is a prerequisite as we continue to digitalise offshore operations,” said BW Offshore head of IT and other digital systems, Fritz Ekløff.

“As more of the applications we depend on become cloud-based, efficient stable and secure connectivity becomes increasingly important to how our offshore and onshore teams work together,” he said.

“This agreement gives us a standardised, scalable and resilient foundation across our FPSO fleet, wherever our assets operate.”

It is Tampnet’s first long-term global framework agreement directly with an FPSO owner and will test its capabilities to deliver connectivity through various technologies and services.

“FPSOs are global assets, and connectivity has to follow them,” Tampnet chief executive, Elie Hanna, said.

Tampnet can solve the “challenges of giving offshore operators the digital foundation to operate smarter, safer and more efficiently,” he said.