The OLT Offshore LNG Toscana FSRU – Floating Storage Regasification Unit

RADIO LINK PROJECT OFF / ON SHORE Andrea Vallavanti – ICT Manager

2

Technical Commercial Aspects

• Conversion of an existing LNG carrier of 137.500 cm of LNG into a floating regassification unit;

• Moored 12 miles offshore Livorno in 110 meters water depth with a single point mooring;

• Regassification unit on board for send-out with nominal capacity of 3.75 bcm/a

• Allowed to receive LNG carriers size in the range between 65,000 cm and 155,000 cm

• LNG loading occurs by direct transfer from LNG carriers moored side-by-side to the terminal via traditional (Jetty) loading arms

• Wobbe Index Corrector installed to produce Nitrogen can allow to receive most of the LNGs types

• High flexibility in send out flow rate (maximum capacity of 15 MSm3/d with a very low minimum send out) allows high trading value to the users

• Regassification capacity available for Third Party Access - Commercial and operational contracts and documents have been published on OLT web site www.oltoffshore.it

Main Features

Thruster Wobbe Index Corrector

Turbo generator

Blister

Unloading arms

Regasification plant

Single point mooring

Positioning of the Terminal

Operational Management

Operational Management is carried out as follows:

Management and responsibility for all operations has been subcontracted to ECOS Srl – a joint venture company founded in 2010 by Fratelli Cosulich SpA 40% and EXMAR 60%. ECOS has sole responsibility as ‘Armatore’ for the Terminal

Fratelli Neri SpA provides all the naval support service:

“LNG Guardian” vessel for the surveillance of the Terminal

Support for the berthing to the LNG Terminal with 2/3 deep-sea tugs

Shuttle service from the Port of Livorno to the Terminal with the vessel "LNG Express"

FSRU Start up Link Connection

RADIO LINK

PROJECT

PLAN

FSRU Start upLink Connection EPCIC CONTRACT FSRU TOSCANA - LINKS AVAILABILITY -

VSAT LINK : 512 Kbps Fleet 77 : 128 Kbps Mini M : Remote control connection for maintenance

FSRU TOSCANA EMPLOYEE ON BOARD

90 Technician during PAC (Provisional Acceptance Certification ) 35 Technician during normal operation

FSRU TOSCANA DATA FLOW OFF/ON SHORE BANDWIDTH NEED

SNAM RETE GAS (Italia Grid owner ) 250 Kbps DCS System data flow Off/ On shore (Read mode) 1 Mbps Meteo System 500 Kbps LAN system on board (10 PCs ) 1,5 Mbps Data connection for private device for crew (35 Technician) 1 Mbps Voip Telephone 250 Kbps

TOTAL BANDWIDTH NEEDED 4,5 Mbps(minimum)

Budget comparison links OFF/ON shore Prices 2010 based

VSAT BANDWIDTH INCREASE

OPEX 10 K€/ month CAPEX 10-15 K€

UMTS /LTE CONNECTION

OPEX 500 € /monthCAPEX 10 K€

FIBER OPTIC CONNECTION

OPEX 5 K€/ month CAPEX Millions of €uro

RADIO LINK CONNECTION

OPEX 3 K€ / month CAPEX 250 K€

Option available on the market

A. Increase VSAT bandwidth with the available HW installed on the FSRU and in On Shore Base

PROHW available on the vessel and in on-shore base Limited project implementation

CONHigh Opex monthly cost for a minimum bandwidth of 5Mbps Round Trip delay >400 msBack up system to be increased (avalable Fleet 77) but with the same technology

UMTS /LTE connection

PROEasy installation Limited cost

CONNetwork shared and not dedicated Strictly related to coverage at 12 miles far from the coastBandwidth not aligned with the need

Option available on the market

C. Fiber optic connection using the laying of pipeline

PROLaying in parallalel to the pipeline High bandwidth balanced availability Physical connection on earth system

CONHigh cost of installation

D. Radio Link OFF On shore

PRODedicated and Balanced badwidth > 5Mbps Cost of implementation < 300 k€

CONDedicated project to be developed Developing time > 1 year and half ( without authorization)

FSRU Key Challanges

RADIO LINK

PROJECT

PLAN

DO

Key Challange

The link between the shore and the FSRU had to ensure constant communication (with relatively high bandwidth) in both directions, despite the long distance over-water.

 

 The path profile between the two end points, show number of complex technical challenges:

Limited antenna height:

The On-Shore Base (located in Leghorn) is settled at the sea level, where the only possibility is to build a small tower to host the antennas. Due to the long distance (and the curvature of the earth's surface) the sea itself constituted an obstacle to radio wave propagation.

Furthermore, given the limited antenna height on the on-shore site, the ships passing through the harbor may have constituted an additional unpredictable obstacle for the radio link.

Key Challange

Propagation over sea surface.

Multipath fading is one of the main issues that affect radio propagation over the sea surface. Radio waves are reflected, and the signal joins the antenna with two different paths. The delay introduced by the different path length may cause the two signals to join the antenna with different phases. The received signal is thus obtained by the phase difference between the two signals. Whether the two signals are equal in strength, a phase shift of 180° will cause the zeroing of the received signal.

The longer is the path over the sea surface, the biggest is the impact of multipath fading.

The radio link had to cope with the following movements of the FSRU:

Rotation of the vessel 360°

Roll: ± 17.84° Surge ± 4,56m

Pitch: ± 5.25° Heave: ± 7.46m

Yaw: ± 2.03° Sway: ± 6.19m

On Shore site evaluation /comparison

Radio Pilot Control Room

PRO Good position in front of open sea

CONLimited height Limited space on the roof for all the antennas

ENEL Power Plant

PRO Structure for dishes installation available Reasonably Good position in front of the sea

CONProbable dismission of the power plant Cost of the housing fee

On shore site evaluation /comparison

Grain Silos

PRO Excellent Height

CONHigh housing cost 35 k€ /year Dusty Environment

Palazzo Orlando Headquarter OLT

PRO OLT’s Property (last floor) Easy access Server Room from the SAT’s dishes and Radio Link

CONLimitation due to historical building . No modification of the roof

Dishes installation ON shore base

Radio link 7Ghz VSAT Fleet 77 Mini M

Rendering of the iron structure

Antennas final location ashore

Final installation

Key Challanges first step

RADIO LINK

PROJECT

PLAN

DO CHECK

Key Challange first step

Operates in 1400 MHz band using a 7 MHz channel size and hitless space diversity (HSD) to minimise multipath fading

Provides a capacity of 11.8 Mb/s using QPSK modulation

Fade margin

23 dB with shore antennas at 15 m29 dB with shore antennas at 75 m

High link reliability due to HSD with 2 receivers and 1 operating transmitter and one back up transmitter per transceiver

Upper (Tx/Rx) antennaLower (Rx only) antenna

Key Challange second and final step

The technical solution:

The Antenna’s height limit was solved introducing an intermediate repeater at 900 mt a.s.l. In the FSRU, in order to find a correct LOS (Line of Sight) free from obstacle, the position for the Radio Link Antenna was chosen modifying the Radar Mast, on the FSRU. The tower infrastructure in the location ashore was also modified in order to host the needed antennas.

Antenna’s location in Livorno was find out with a correct balance between the technical need and housing costs. Construction inside the Port was aligned in this way, but additional structural activities were studied ad developed for the correct allocation of the Radio Link antenna’s and its Satellite Back Up . The structure released and installed , start from scratch, over the building chosen for the installation of the four antennas.

Ministry of Economic Development didn’t agree on the use of two OMNI directional antennas on the FSRU due to interference with Military need , Sardinia and Corsica Island (France) . As aftermath, a pointing system with a directional antenna was put in place with formal agree from the competence Authority in Rome.

Key Challange

FSRU Movements was the biggest challenge to solve:

FSRU rotation’s issue was solved using a Moog QPT-50 computer-controlled rotary joint. A Tracking Control Unit running Ponti Radio PR ATS software was installed, controlling the rotary joint by calculating second by second the antenna PAN from the current FSRU heading. ATS software provides also OLT with an early notification in case of fault.

A Yagi Antenna was mounted on top of the rotary joint, providing a relative high gain and avoiding the spread of RF signal in not-needed directions (this constraint was introduced by the Regulatory Authority in order to avoid interference with foreign frequencies)

The Intermediate repeater has two high gain grid antennas with a diameter of 2.4 mt and vertical space diversity of 8 mt were used, in order to have, at the right location of the FSRU, a footprint wide enough to solve issues related to other antenna movements.

Dedicated structure over the new Radar Mast (FSRU Toscana) was been engineered and installed in order to support the rotary joint + Yagi antenna and access for maintenance.

Key Challange

47 Km

25 Km

Third party company & system integrator

RADIOLINK PROJECT

Third party company & system integrator

The Radio Link was thus realized in two steps:  A first link was made between Port of Leghorn and a location ashore . This link (25 Km) was set using a Aviat Eclipse in the 7 GHz band.

  A second link was made between the same location and the FSRU. This link (47 Km) was realized with 4RF Aprisa XE in the 1.5 Ghz band In order to minimize the impactof multipath fading the Hitless Space Diversity configuration was used. This solution provides both radio link protection from fading and redundancy.

Additional HW aimed to the Radio Link realization :

Pointing System over the Radar mast , provided with a QPT 50 computer controlled Rotary Joint

Third party system integrator (Italy)

Rotary Joint and Yagi antenna Installation Offshore – FSRU TOSCANA

New Radar Mast structure

Pointing System

Moog QPT-RF Units

Performance Specifications: • The QPT-RF series of Pan and Tilt Positioners employ RF rotary joint technology

for management of radio frequency signals. These rugged antenna positioners support a wide range of antenna sizes, frequency bands and up to 3 isolated channels of RF pass-through signals.

• All RF, video, power and control data cables are pass through to eliminate cables in motion with the Pan and Tilt making cable management simple, neat, and safe.

• Supports antennas from man-portable up to 3-meters.• Mulitiple RF channel pass–through from DC up to 18 GHZ.• Network ready

Further Challanges

Developing the correct infrastructure on the FSRU Toscana with a new iron structure over the Radar Mast;

Develop and agree with EPCIC contractor the integration of the Radio link with the other system just available on board;

Correct location on the vessel for the two cabinets dedicated to radio Link HW ;

Integration on the vessel with the former IT infrastructure ( VSAT connection) , with a new one where the Radio Link is the Primary Link connection and VSAT, the Back up . Dedicated dynamic routing protocol (EIGRP , OSPF etc) was been implemented on the Primary Router radio link and transfer a rounting information to VSAT routers

Further Challanges

Develop and build a proper structure for installation of all the antennas on shore .

Dedicated iron structure over a building in the Port of Leghorn was built and put in place .

Electromagnetic compatibility requested by ARPAT Toscana in order to be aligned with the power emission of the antenna in On shore base (Port of Leghorn) .

Start from scratch on the WAN in onshore base with dedicated F.O. connection and back up wired connection in order to collect all the data flows from/to the vessel .

Radio Link Project – PM point of view

ICT MANAGEROLT

PROJECT DEVELOP

TENDER ICT RADIO LINK

EPCIC CONTRACT VARIATION PROPOSAL

AUTHORIZATIONOLT MSE

FREQUENCIES

DDW WORLD YARD

FSRU TOSCANA RECONVERSION

MODIFICATION STRUCTURE ON

THE FSRU NEW RADAR

MAST

CORRECT LOCATION ON

SHORE & LOCAL AUTHORIZATION

(LEGHORN)

WAN INPROVEMENT

AUTHORIZATION WAN

INPROVEMENT

FINAL INSTALLATION AND

SAT

CLOSE OF THE PROJECT

Thank you for your attentionwww.oltoffshore.it

•Andrea Vallavanti – ICT Manager •Mail to : andrea.vallavanti@oltoffshore.it•Linkedin: it.linkedin.com/in/vallavantiandrea