Scottish IT experts travel to Gdansk after winning £500,000 contract

Published:   30th Jun 2011, 16:25

We have completed the installation of ground-breaking new technology onboard two oil rigs in Gdansk after securing a half-million pound contract with oil drilling specialists Awilco Drilling PLC.

tycom scooped the contract to design and install cutting-edge IT systems after a tough competitive process, based on their unique experience in the hostile North Sea environment. The two rigs, WilPhoenix and WilHunter, have undergone a complete refit at the Rementowa shipyard at Gdnask, Poland on the edge of the Baltic Sea.

Duncan Cameron, operations manager here at tycom, said:

“We have custom-built a fault-tolerant infrastructure to meet all the IT needs on the rigs – making sure that all key business systems are highly available. Our team of experts travelled to Gdansk to install the systems and will continue to work closely with Awilco Drilling to monitor the systems 24 hours a day and provide out-of-hours support, seven days a week. At tycom our engineers are trained in offshore survival, meaning that they can, and do, work on oilrigs all over the world.”

The WilPhoenix and WilHunter rigs will be deployed in the North Sea in May this year. Jon Bryce, chief executive at Awilco Drilling PLC, said:

“We have invested $90million in upgrading our two rigs in Gdansk, with the aim of relaunching them as the ‘best-in-class’ this year. The new IT systems provided by tycom are an important part of this and will help us to improve performance, reliability and operability. Having the IT systems in place will take us one step closer to beginning our operation in the Northern Sea.”

tycom also manage the IT needs of Awilco Drilling’s headquarters in Aberdeen and recently installed a custom-built system which is fully managed and monitored. Cameron continues:

“We have a wealth of experience designing systems for oil companies and rigs. The demands of oil exploration are tougher than ever before, as exploration goes into ever less accessible oilfields. The tightest operation safety standards, incident management, information security, and reliability in very difficult conditions require creativity in the IT design, and an emphasis on strong, robust installation.”

tycom, which has offices in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh, recently became a Hewlett Packard Gold Preferred Partner Computing Systems Specialist - a prestigious accreditation that has only ever been achieved once before by a Scottish-headquartered company. HP Gold Preferred Partner status is awarded to only the top five percent of resellers from companies across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Gold Preferred Partners offer in-depth knowledge and experience, ensuring that customers benefit from the best knowledge and expertise. Cameron adds:

“Being awarded HP Gold Preferred Partner status is a huge achievement for tycom. Gold Preferred Partners must adhere to strict guidelines and we're please to have met the standard, especially as there are so few such Gold Preferred Partners across the world.”

Just 150 companies in the UK are HP Gold Preferred Partners. David Adam, channel sales team manager at Hewlett Packard, said:

“Working with tycom through the accreditation process has cemented our view that they offer the highest standards of service and competence. They join a prestigious group of HP Gold Preferred Partners."

Certified by HP, Preferred Partners offer in-depth knowledge and experience, ensuring that customers benefit from the best knowledge and expertise. Companies qualify for the accreditation based upon their annual revenue, and specific sales & technical certifications. In 2010/11 Tycom achieved an annual turnover of over £3million and sales of over $1.3million worth of HP enterprise equipment.