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Natural gas is Turkmenistan's main export for foreign currency, accounting for an estimated 70 percent of its exports. Turkengaz needs to rely on the fiber optic network in their gas extracting stations. Challenging repair and modernisation in rough desert conditions were needed.
Turkmenistan ranks fourth in the world, after Russia, theUnited States and Canada, in natural gas and oil extraction. Gas production is the youngest and most dynamic and promising sector of the national economy. The Turkmenistan Natural Gas Company (Turkmengaz), under the auspices of the Ministry of Oil and Gas, controls gas extractionin the republic. Sites under exploration are located in Mary Province, in western and northern Turkmenistan, on the right bank of the Amu Darya and offshore in the Caspian Sea.
The interstate pipelinesystem retained its value at the time of independence and is a priority of the republic's economic development plans. The government has pursued international projects to build gas pipelines through Iran to Turkey, through Afghanistan to Pakistan, and through Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China to Japan. In 1994 the government signed an agreement withIran to begin the Turkmenistan-Iran-Turkey-Europe gas pipeline.
Beginning of April 2005 Polish companies Teleoptics Sp. z o.o. andProchem S.A. successfully finished the repair and modernization of fiber optic network supporting gas extracting stations in Turkmenistan. The works included the repair of damaged fiber line as well as supply and start-up of the teletransmission system operating for the gas pipeline going from Turkmenistan' gas field to the neighbouring Iran. Big part of the pipeline is crossing the Garagum Desert, flatlands of whichoccupy nearly 80 percent of country's area.
The system was based on Microsens Fast Ethernet industrial switches with redundant fiber ports, enabling the implementation of fault tolerant fiber rings. The devices assure the constant and stable work of 8 pipeline sub-stations located within 100 km range. Fast Ethernet industrial switches ofMicrosens are equipped with a special recovery mechanism. In case of failure of any fiber segment it assures the reconfiguration of the connection within less than 100 ms.
The intelligent Fast Ethernet ring topology enables the continuous operation of all users, even in case of a link or component failure. Several months of hard work in therough desert conditions were completed successfully. Gas extracting stations have now full connection possibilities as well as an ability ofremote control of the devices monitoring the gas extracting process.
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