Innovation and Growth

"Innovation and growth are in our DNA," Petrobras describes itself in its publication, Our Business in New Frontiers. It's a warranted claim. By 2013, the company anticipates a capital funding of $4.9 billion for its activities within the United States. And innovations in technology now drive the company's global expansion.

In fact, Petrobras operates the largest research and development center in Latin America. Within the energy industry, Petrobras has been widely recognized in recent years – receiving two Distinguished Awards for Companies, Organizations, and Institutions and one for Individuals from the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) for its contribution to the development of the oil industry. The company has accumulated scores of patents in its quest for technological leadership in exploration and production, reservoir modeling, and reengineering of tankers into "FPSO" (floating production, storage, and offloading) units.

Creating a 21^st Century Communications Infrastructure

Petrobras America has been present in the United States since 1987. The company recently acquired a 50% stake in a Pasadena, Texas-based refinery. As it embarked on its aggressive expansion plans, Petrobras realized that its on-shore communication technologies must provide the infrastructure necessary to sustain innovation in its offshore energy production activities. As a result, Petrobras' in-house technology groups make a habit of investing in new frontier technologies. Nowhere was this more apparent than at the company's facilities in Houston, Texas.

Antonio Marin, Chief Information Officer for Petrobras America, is responsible for guaranteeing the operational excellence of the organization. As Petrobras was established in the US, one of its first challenges was to upgrade its communication architecture in the country. The company inherited an outdated Public Branch Exchange (PBX) system. Capable of sustaining only 100 phone numbers, the system's capacity was quickly eclipsed by the four-fold growth of Petrobras America in 2005 and 2006.

Taking into consideration its rapid growth spurt, Petrobras America needed a modern phone system that could support the increasing demands of exploration, production, trading, procurement, and other essential business functions within Petrobras America.

Three Primary Requirements

From Petrobras' perspective, the new communication network solution needed to address three main requirements:

• Support current workforce requirements
• Comply with Petrobras corporate communication standards
• Anticipate future communication requirements of the business

In addition, Petrobras America exploration and production groups in Houston would soon need a reliable communication network to provide troubleshooting and emergency support services to Petrobras' platform crews operating in the Gulf of Mexico.

Getronics' Converged Data and Voice Solution

Getronics provided Petrobras with a complete converged communications solution for their Houston office beginning with system design through end user training and post-implementation "day one" support. The solution replaced Petrobras America's existing PBX.

Other components in the comprehensive solution included a physical network site survey, equipment staging and integration, structured cabling/UPS/rack installation, and billing system design and implementation. Getronics understood the strategic value to Petrobras of creating a system that would allow for future growth and adaptability and created a flexible and scalable solution to meet that need. The solution included state-of-the art communications functionality tailored to the specific requirements of various business teams at Petrobras America.

The resulting solution operates on a single, Internet Protocol (IP)-based network, offering the benefits of a single physical infrastructure, consolidated and simplified maintenance and support, a single management platform, and a standards-based solution.

In order to adopt a unified networking strategy it was essential that the underlying physical network infrastructure be capable of supporting time dependent applications such as voice and video. As such there are a number of key features that the infrastructure and active network devices must support including:

• High performance and structured cable plant
• Switched infrastructure in the Local Area Network (LAN)
• Equipment and infrastructure resiliency
• Quality of Service (QoS) classification for voice clarity
• Proper bandwidth across the LAN and Wide Area Network (WAN)
• Embedded Power over Ethernet
• Well-designed Spanning Tree, IP address scheme, and Virtual LANs (VLANS)

Petrobras also required that Getronics implement the replacement communications network with no disruption to business operations or interruptions to employee activity at the Houston location. Crews worked off-hours to accomplish these objectives.

The overall solution was comprehensive: fully one-third of the Petrobras investment in this new communication infrastructure was cabling alone. By the time the system went online in November of 2006, more than forty-seven miles of cable had been installed by Getronics at Petrobras' Houston facility.

Operational Excellence

Beyond the immediate benefit of providing a stable communications network for Petrobras' US-based operating unit, Getronics' solution offered several additional benefits.

The first is reliability. Here Getronics' solution met the test: its solution has not had one failure since it went on line in late 2006. The second is the ability to scale. The current system can handle up to 1,000 users.

In fact, Marin notes, "Just by adding one card I can expand this system to accommodate 10,000 users."

The third benefit is secure operational capability. A key to Petrobras' operational effectiveness will be its ability to communicate quickly with their teams operating on the FPSO's and other platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, particularly in emergency conditions such as hurricanes. Because Petrobras America invested in state-of-the-art unified communications technology, it now has an infrastructure that can be married to satellite-based communications capabilities currently under consideration.

Finally, Petrobras America's communications infrastructure offers the benefit of low-cost replication. In this regard, the Getronics-designed and installed communications system in Houston has been evaluated by Petrobras units in other countries for possible replication in those locations.

Why Getronics?

In discussing why Petrobras selected Getronics, CIO Antonio Marin says, "When we put this project out for bids, many vendors overlooked the opportunity. But Getronics listened to us; they were focused on helping us address three things: what we had for a system; what our corporate compliance requirements were for new systems; and, what we could improve on."

Petrobras wanted a partner that would have, in their words, "the patience to work with us flexibly" during Petrobras America's growth phases. Getronics met the test. Petrobras initiated several adjustments to the initial project timetable. In every case, Getronics kept pace and maintained a consistent set of dedicated resources for the project.

Petrobras also wanted evidence of engineering imagination and innovation in its technology partner. Getronics' proposal and details of its engineering solution for Petrobras America reflected just that kind of high caliber engineering expertise. Of particular importance in this regard was Getronics' capability for knowledge transfer.