Putting power into your security

Oil and gas companies work in a strategic and politically sensitive area, facing far more potential threats than less contentious industries, says Robert Wint.

The extraction and exploitation of oil and gas requires large-scale facilities spread across very wide areas in the harshest of environments. Protecting such facilities therefore requires surveillance systems able to work cost-effectively across large distances, in difficult natural environments, and with large numbers of cameras and sensors. They also need to provide options for remote monitoring and control of dangerous sites in the event of an evacuation, and protect from the dangers of damaging litigation should a major disaster occur.

A modern approach
The latest IP video solutions are able to offer cost-effective remote control and monitoring, while providing the ability to centrally manage much larger numbers of sites and cameras than would have been possible using traditional CCTV.

By providing flexibility of location, it is now cost-effective to bring video to the security team, rather than having to locate staff on each site. This not only makes it more economic to monitor multiple sites but also simpler to ensure, and audit, compliance to health, safety and emergency procedures. The latest video management platforms also make it possible to integrate video with other information such as alarm sensors and access control systems.

Following best practice
It may sound obvious, but the first thing a company should be aware of when assessing its security requirements is the environment in which it operates, and the challenges it therefore faces. Security processes should be clearly stated and appropriate tools implemented to ensure compliance to them.

When choosing a security solution purchasers need to make sure that they buy into open software and hardware systems, now available from some, but not all, leading security suppliers, which will not tie them to one vendor for all the parts of their system, and therefore limit their systems’ overall performance.

The choice of an open platform should ensure not only that best-of-breed technology from different vendors can be combined, but also that information from different systems can be fully integrated.

A proven solution
The advice surrounding effective technology deployment is founded on genuine experience of working within the oil and gas sector. Verint’s Nextiva IP video solution has recently been deployed to protect a major utility site. The threat-assessment for the site highlighted a 6.5km perimeter that required protection from criminal activity, possible terrorist attack and possible threat from environmental protestors.

The system installed was designed to provide detailed video surveillance of the entire perimeter including automatic detection of intruders using the latest video content analysis technologies. This required more than 200 new CCTV cameras, 155 of which are equipped with advanced video content analysis, with information brought back to a response centre for monitoring and system control.

One of the major challenges for the system was ensuring a low false alarm rate for the new automatic video analysis technology. Careful and intelligent planning of camera locations and the use of new LED-based lighting technology has ensured that threats to the perimeter are accurately and reliably identified; detection rates for intruders are maximised, whereas false alarm activations are kept to a minimum.

Future proofing
Verint is working on several new technologies that it believes can offer significant benefits to oil and gas companies. The use of automated video content analysis can significantly enhance the monitoring of large perimeters and remote sites such as pipelines and pumping stations, making it possible to reliably detect people and vehicles in defined areas of risk.

Not only is Verint investing heavily to extend this technology to other applications in order to reduce the cost of the systems and make them easier to deploy, it is also investing heavily in the new generation of wireless technology to reduce the cost and complexity of deploying video surveillance in harsh or remote environments, especially when protecting perimeters and pipelines.

As a leader in the supply of wireless IP video systems, as well as open video management platforms, Verint is continuously enhancing its own wireless capabilities and ensuring that its latest video surveillance systems are compatible with emerging standards in the wireless networking world.

Robert Wint is Marketing Director, EMEA, at Verint Systems Ltd. For further information, please contact: Marketing.emea@verint.com.