Dramatic improvements in information on offshore wells and production

Houston Chronicle:

Oil coming out of the ground from thousands of feet below the Gulf of Mexico floor may take hours or more to reach land, but data about that oil, the rate it's flowing and the platform that produced it can be monitored immediately on a computer screen hundreds of miles away.

A growing telecommunications infrastructure in the Gulf is enabling the oil companies to have better information faster, and the conversion from old microwave radio systems to modern satellite, cellular and fiber-optic networks means those data pathways are more reliable and less vulnerable to outages from storms.

In short, the communications grid in the Gulf of Mexico is starting to resemble the one on land, where consumers use similar technology to download music and movies. Businesses in the Gulf want the same level of bandwidth to monitor well pressure and other operations.

"What's driving it is the recognition that information is becoming more and more valuable. There's an economic advantage to having better information," said Allen Brooks, managing partner of the Houston energy investment banking firm Parks Paton Hoepfl & Brown.

It's that revelation that prompted oil giant BP in 2006 to lay 800 miles of fiber, looping on the Gulf floor from Freeport to Pascagoula, Miss., and spurred Houston telecommunications company Broadpoint to install and upgrade dozens of cell towers and satellite dishes on platforms in over 100,000 square miles of the Gulf. A variety of oil field service companies including telecommunications in their packages and traditionally land-based telecommunications companies are moving offshore, Brooks said.

Whether on the seafloor or on platforms, offshore installations and maintenance are more expensive to install and maintain, but they're worth it, Brooks said. As the cost of offshore operations increases, the value of better data and communications goes up too. And as the price of oil increases, companies have more money to spend on communications infrastructure and services.

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There is more.

What this enhanced communication system can do besides keep the companies up to date on current operations and productions is alert them to problems before they get big. This should mean even less chance of loses caused by leaks and spills. It might not ease the minds of Henny Pennies like Nancy Pelosi, but it does demonstrate a commitment to reducing environmental problems.