Motorola Solutions has been awarded a contract to manage and support network operations for QGC’s liquefied natural gas project in southern Queensland.
The five-year $10 million managed services contract will see Motorola Solutions manage and operate the communications network for the project’s main gas compression sites: the upstream control room in Chinchilla and, from January 1, 2015, the midstream LNG plant on Curtis Island near Gladstone.
The contract will help QGC realise safety, productivity and efficiency benefits by providing for service performance and network uptime guarantees, ensuring radio services for operations and emergency response management remain uninterrupted.
Motorola Solutions will manage all in-field wireless communications from its Network Operations Centre (NOC) in Melbourne, as well as provide support services on-site.
Motorola Solutions has been working with QGC on the deployment of the microwave and 33-site digital radio system since 2011. Late last year, Motorola Solutions announced the completion of the network. Valued at $32 million, the network is now one of the largest TETRA wireless networks in Australia.
“We couldn’t be prouder of our partnership with QGC. Our extended partnership with the organisation as a part of this managed services contract will further help them increase efficiency and productivity by providing certainty of operational performance, and most importantly help them achieve their No.1 priority of enabling a safer working environment for their employees,” said Steven Crutchfield, managing director, Motorola Solutions Australia and New Zealand.
The new managed services contract extends the partnership between the two organisations from network deployment to operations. The contract includes performance and network uptime guarantees, and support for both traditional and intrinsically-safe TETRA radio devices, to optimise safety, productivity and emergency response management in the field.
It also includes a managed location service that monitors the location of all employees and contractors on site to enable safer working conditions, in line with QGC’s strict policies regarding workplace safety.
The microwave and TETRA digital radio system provides wide area communications, linking its principal central processing plants in the gas fields to its field compression stations, main line valve stations, its Chinchilla upstream control room / office and logistics facility as well as its corporate office in Brisbane.
The microwave and TETRA telecommunications infrastructure includes vehicle terminals with GPS tracking, hand-held terminals, desk terminals, dispatcher consoles and voice recording facility. To date, more than 2,000 devices have been deployed for staff on the ground.
The backbone microwave network is currently supporting CCTV cameras in remote areas, as well as operational functions such as telemetry, email, telephony and printing.
