Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks to Acquire Optoplan

Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) Submarine Networks (ASN), a subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent, recently announced an agreement with Sercel, part of the CGG Group, for the acquisition of Optoplan, a provider of 4D permanent reservoir monitoring solutions used in offshore oil and gas production. The acquisition will help ASN come up with an all-in-one 4D PRM solution for oil and gas companies. The new solution will help further improve oil recovery ratio as well as extend the life of oil fields.

Optoplan is a Norwegian company that claims to have pioneered optical fiber sensing within oil and gas applications over the past 30 years. Optoplan was a subsidiary of Weatherford International Ltd and Wavefield Inseis, which was acquired by the CGG Group in 2009. Since then, Optoplan is fully owned by Sercel, a subsidiary of the CGG Group, a fully integrated geosciences company.

Commenting on the acquisition, Philippe Dumont, President of Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks said, “While ASN is already a leading player in Oil and Gas platform connectivity, Optoplan will extend our capabilities in the Oil & Gas domain, fully supporting the industrial plan to diversify our presence and capture new segments in this highly promising market.”

Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Network has a strong presence in oil and gas market, and has connected several major offshore platforms in various geographies. The company recently signed an agreement with Libyan International Telecommunication Company (LITC) to deploy new 1,000 km undersea cable system linking Tripoli to Benghazi. The new cable system will contribute to the reconstruction of the Libyan telecom infrastructure and will provide further reliability to domestic and international communications

Officials with Alcatel-Lucent said that based on Alcatel-Lucent‘s 100G technology and a cable optimized with coherent submarine fiber, the system will ultimately carry capacity in excess of 10Tbit/s per fiber pair and is expected to be ready for completion mid of 2015.