[Satnews] ITC Global was awarded a multi-million dollar contract in early March of this year to provide remote offshore communications to two floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels in Western Africa.
The seven-year, $6.5 million contract, awarded by Saipem, is part of the Kaombo Field Development Project in offshore Angola. The ultra-deepwater contract is one of the most significant offshore projects in the world today, dedicated to developing oil deposits spread across six different fields with water depths of 1,400 to 1,900 meters (4,600-6,200 feet).
Saipem is a world leader in drilling services, as well as in the engineering, procurement, construction and installation of pipelines and complex projects in the oil and gas market. Saipem was awarded contracts for the installation and commissioning, and operation and maintenance services for the FPSO vessels, which are owned by leading European-based oil and gas company, Total. The FPSOs will both be outfitted with two C-band stabilized antenna systems, delivering between 5 and 10 Mbps high data rate service to each vessel.
In December, ITC Global announced that it had been awarded multiple offshore communications contracts for five separate FPSO vessels operating in the Congo, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea. This latest award solidifies ITC Global as one of the industry’s most stable and trusted providers. ITC Global was acquired by Panasonic Corporation in 2015. The organization has a long-term strategy for growth that includes an expanding network portfolio of traditional wide beam, high throughput and extreme high throughput capacity, delivering near 100 percent uptime with coverage spanning 98 percent of the world’s most trafficked maritime routes. As the world's largest buyer of commercial space segment, Panasonic is revolutionizing today’s VSAT market with game-changing pricing and service delivery.
“This award speaks to ITC Global’s reputation for delivering reliable communications for highly complex projects in key geographic regions for our customers across the oil and gas sector,” said Joe Spytek, Chief Executive Officer, ITC Global. “Our customers continue to count on us for their long-term requirements in Western Africa, where we are able to leverage our local presence and expertise. It’s a great example of what ITC Global can do in the current market environment in terms of partnering with a customer to understand their long-term requirements and developing a solution that still delivers more bandwidth and better performance while providing significant cost efficiencies."