Petrobras hires Musk's Starlink, ups supercomputing capacity

Brazil’s Petrobras is deploying Starlink’s low-orbit satellites to enhance offshore connectivity while onshore it is increasing the capacity of its supercomputers, the federal oil company's general ICT manager, Marinho Ayres Fischer, said on Tuesday.

“We recently entered into an acquisition agreement with Starlink and we’re testing it on the platforms. Initially, there are around 10 pieces of equipment [being deployed],” Fischer said in response to BNamericas in a conversation with reporters on the sidelines of the Dell Technologies Forum in São Paulo.

The negotiations with Starlink, which did not have a specific unit to serve corporates in Brazil, lasted approximately one year, he said. BNamericas was unable to confirm the exact value of the contract. 

Starlink’s equipment will be used for connectivity on FPSOs, platforms and vessels in general, said Fischer. The Elon Musk firm's first dishes, however, are being deployed on platforms, notably those that have had more connectivity problems, according to the executive, adding initial use is "promising."

The initiative marks Petrobras' first open bet on low-orbit satellites. Currently, the company relies for back-up connectivity on satellites mostly in higher orbits, which tend to have higher signal latency.

Last year, Petrobras selected managed services and telecoms integrator Sencinet (formerly BT LatAm) to interconnect all of its offshore and terrestrial units via satellite ground antennas (Vsats) provided by Israel’s Gilat, as reported first by BNamericas.

Gilat works with satellites developed by Hispasat, Intelsat, Eutelsat, Inmarsat, Telesat and SES, among others. This month, Sencinet announced it had become an integrator of Starlink in Latin America.

SUPERCOMPUTERS

While offshore Petrobras is diversifying and enhancing connectivity, onshore it is boosting its supercomputing capacity, aimed mainly at exploration and research. Dell is one of its key suppliers.

Petrobras’ contract with Dell entailed four high performance computing (HPC) machines, or supercomputers, each with its own specificity and application purpose: Gaia, Gemini, Albacora and Casarin.

In August, all the machines started operating at full capacity, revealed Fischer. Of the four, Albacora was launched first as it did not include GPUs in its design. The powerful graphic processing units are taking longer to be supplied by manufacturers due to the high market demand.

Gaia is focused on research and was set up at the Petrobras development and innovation research center (Cenpes) in Rio de Janeiro. As previously reported by BNamericas, the contract was won by Dell last year for 76mn reais (US$15.7mn).

Gaia has processing capacity of 7.7 petaflops, equivalent to 1.5mn cellphones or 40,000 laptops, and estimated power consumption of 574kW.

Gemini is being used for seismic processing, employed by Petrobras’ exploration and production (E&P) area, while Albacora and Casarin are both focused on reservoir environments: Albacora on the engineering of reservoir simulations and Casarin on reservoir geophysical processing, according to the executive. The latter saw a return on investment (ROI) of more than eight times in just six months, Fischer said.

This year, Petrobras also went live with the 36mn-real Tatu supercomputer, applied to support its E&P operations and said to be the company’s first HPC with artificial intelligence capabilities.

French IT firm Atos, which has previously supplied most of the company's supercomputers, won the contract for Tatu. According to Fischer, Tatu was tendered first but deployed later than Dell's Gaia.

Like Gaia, Tatu was installed at Cenpes in Rio.

Including Gemini, Albacora and Casarin, Petrobras boasts nine supercomputers. 

The biggest one is Pégaso, supplied by Atos, which the company claims to be the fifth most powerful in the global oil and gas industry, with processing capacity of 21 petaflops and power consumption of 1.5MW.

The structures do not only serve operations in Brazil. According to Fischer, the company's investment in HPC machines was “fundamental” for recent gas discoveries in Colombia, for example.

He declined to comment on whether Petrobras has other supercomputer tenders in the pipeline – although taking into account the growing discoveries and the expansion of E&P it seems likely to be the case.

In addition to Atos and Dell, Petrobras also has an HPC contract with HP.

Petrobras' current strategic plan, which outlines US$78bn in investments for 2023-27, earmarks US$2.1bn for digital transformation and innovation.

The oil company also uses laptops, monitors and PCs supplied by Dell, which won a tender held around two years ago to replace all the equipment.

ONSHORE FIBER

Fischer also confirmed that Petrobras' management is reassessing selling its onshore fiber network. The expectation is for a decision to be made by the end of the year, he said.

“There is a feasibility study and this opportunity is being evaluated by the portfolio area. Today, operators are able to provide this service to Petrobras.

“Petrobras in fact already uses part of the telco structure. Now we've taken a step back, we're reassessing whether it makes sense [to sell]. In principle, it does,” said Fischer.

The divestment had been announced last October, under Petrobras’ former leadership. In December, the company opened a process of collecting binding offers for the sale of the terrestrial fiber network.

The network is distributed along oil and gas pipelines from the country's northeast region down to the south, with a separate route in the north.

BNamericas detailed the entire onshore grid, as well as how the sale would be divided into four regional blocks, here.

We also gave exclusive details into the advances of Petrobras' offshore fiber projects, in the Santos and Campos basins, both of which are being carried out by the Zmax Group.