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Video surveillance sees use for monitoring coastal executive director at Red Tiger Security in Houston, traffc monitoring and preventing vandalism in a says. “The biggest beneft of the convergence to IP is

Photo protected area — controlled via internet protocol. the ability to deploy video to places that are not geo- from VideoTec.

physical—limited. “With the older systems that ran over coax, you could only push that video out so far. Then you needed to re- we even have event video recording for a duration of peat that signal every 1700ft. With IP cameras you can three minutes.” go as far as you want either with fber optics, category

Harry Hsiao, product manager of the industrial video 5 or 6 cable, or wireless, putting a canopy over the rig.” networking division at Moxa, worked with Yokogawa

Engineering Asia, combining the DCS system with

EYE ON SAFETY

IP video. “The benefts of the rugged CCTV systems are short response time in the feld of sight because Fred Czubba, senior business development manager the video image pops up automatically once an event for oil and gas at Phoenix Contact in Middletown, has happened, which means less money lost in system Pennsylvania, has seen how cameras can save lives downtime or broken equipment,” he says. offshore. “In the North Sea, temperatures are close to

When the DCS receives an alarm, it sends an event subzero,” Czubba says. “I wouldn’t want my operators trigger to the surveillance server. The video surveil- out at night to investigate a problem when I can have lance system immediately retrieves video streams a camera out on the catwalk. The two highest quantif- from the relevant industrial video encoder unit and able sensors offshore are fre and gas. So if either of initiates recording and playback functions. At the those detects a leak, they will show in which zone, but

DCS control center, a built-in viewer allows engineers not the actual location. If you have a camera at that to review event logs and corresponding video in a location, you can actually see the white cloud where single glance. something is leaking.” Nobody would need to enter a potentially dangerous situation.

IP VIDEO, DCS INTEGRATION “The fare always burns with a little pilot light, and

Video cameras have two important roles in offshore if one of those turbines shuts down, that fare becomes security plans, said Gianni Viero, a vice president at a 600ft candle,” Czubba says. “If the compressor fails,

VideoTec, a CCTV industrial video equipment provider, suddenly you’re venting pure gas into the atmosphere. headquartered in Schio, Italy. “The frst is assessing With the cameras, you can see the pilot went out, and detected alarms and confrming their cause; the second you know you need to reignite it.” is surveillance,” he said. With live video stream that The project in Angola had 224 workstations attached monitors activity approaching the platform, operators to temperature and pressure meters with a high prob- can immediately “direct a response force to counteract ability of flame damage or flare-up. “Since they are and confront any intrusion,” Viero said. so remote, you can’t have somebody managing each

While the camera isn’t a magic pill, it can be a key part workstation at all times,” Nuth says. If the meters exceed of the revolution that’s happening in oil and gas – the a certain pressure and temperature, the sensor will addition of ethernet. send an alarm via “While DCSs are redundant and reliable, they don’t remote monitor- have a lot of bandwidth, but IP video does,” Nuth says. ing to the control

And with the integration of fber and internet, the DCS room. They’ll also “The great thing about ethernet can grow more intelligent.” Integration happens by add- receive the alarm ing another layer of networking or an auxiliary network. by phone and is it’s attached to sensors in the “So if the wireless system fails, operators will still be email. Simultane- able to manage,” Nuth says. And if there is an explosion ously, the camer- feld... Cameras can be tethered or spill, they can now respond faster to fx the problem. as will come on. to meters. Operators can use “The great thing about ethernet is it’s attached to Then the event log sensors in the feld,” Nuth said. “Cameras can be teth- will turn on, so them to survey everything.” ered to these meters, and because the cameras watch this event will be over the DCS and part of the DCS operation, operators saved at the mo- can use them to survey everything in the core opera- ment it exceeds a tions through supervisory control and data acquisition certain pressure (SCADA).” Operators in the control room can see what’s and heat level. Not only can operators see immediately happening on the platform through a live video feed. what has happened, they can post-reference to see how “It’s a network of controllers feeding into the central the problem occurred. They can assess the problem human machine interface (HMI) to a computer screen, remotely and implement corrective action. and one person can control what’s going on. But now

PHYSICAL INTRUSION, CYBER CONCERNS with the cameras, they can see more.”

Before IP video surveillance, “these systems were all If someone approaches a rig, operators will be alerted. proprietary, so if you had one particular vendor, you Some cameras have microphone capabilities and can had to use that vendor’s cabling system, coax, VHC, allow operators to speak to potential intruders. When and twisted pair wires,” Jonathan Pollet, founder and fshermen or tugboats tie off onto the rig in rough seas, oedigital.com 145

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