printer friendly version

Solving the complex equations of petrochemical security solutions

The security issues facing petrochemical sites are many and complex.

Petrochemical sites include process plants, refineries, and storage and distribution terminals, and all these different types of sites face a myriad of threats and challenges, including:

* Geographically, a single site can often cover a large area - and many sites soon add up to a lot of physical territory that must be secured. Natural features, including mountains, deserts, waterways, seashores, harbours and extensive pipelines, are just a few of the natural and man-made challenges that need to be considered in the geographical context.

* Environmentally speaking, petrochemical processing and the storage of highly volatile materials needs to be tightly controlled and monitored to meet environmental protection legislation. The devastation that can be wreaked on the environment is also compounded by the high costs associated with post-spill clean up operations.

* Health and safety breaches can have disastrous consequences and lead to large fines. Operational disruption caused by an incident can also have a major impact on the business and on the lives and interests of those affected in the surrounding area.

* Terrorist activity, and taking all reasonable precautions to avert this threat, has now become a global fact of life. It is undeniable that petrochemical plants offer tempting targets so action is required to eliminate this threat.

* Theft is another criminal activity that requires constant vigilance. The size and nature of petrochemical sites make them prime targets for theft of stored product, plant and materials.

* Immigration control has become a larger issue in recent years. Growing numbers of displaced people seeking entry into other countries is a challenge as the majority of refineries and terminals are located on the coast for access to shipping.

* Customs and excise charges require careful monitoring of stored product, such as petroleum, as losses created by spillage or theft must be strictly accounted for if excessive charges are to be avoided.

John Loftus, managing director of Norbain, the distributors of IndigoVision products in Africa, comments, "A plant-wide surveillance system is an essential tool to monitor and protect sites from this wide range of risks and legislative requirements. Petrochemical sites, which are highly volatile environments spread out over large areas, require many different operators to have access to the same CCTV images.

"This demands a flexible and truly distributed CCTV system that delivers the very highest quality video. IndigoVision is a leading manufacturer of complete end-to-end IP video and alarm management security solutions. Its IP CCTV surveillance systems are field-proven in mission critical and high security applications such as petrochemical sites, airports, rail networks, ports and major events.

"IndigoVision's IP video surveillance technology can help plant operators manage security threats and challenges and provide a capability that cannot be matched by traditional analogue CCTV systems."

Loftus cites the example of a recent IndigoVision project to enhance security at Royal Vopak's petrochemical storage terminal in West Thurrock, UK. With 347 100 m³ of storage capacity in 125 tanks, Vopak's terminal is a very demanding environment with security and health and safety of paramount importance. The terminal provides independent storage and handling of liquid and gaseous chemical and oil products for Vopak's customers. Products are transported from the terminal to the customer by road, pipeline and river (via a 3-berth jetty).

Vopak recently chose to upgrade its ageing analogue CCTV system with a complete end-to-end networked IP video solution from IndigoVision. The 40-camera system was specified by consultants, M J Partnership and installed by ADT Fire & Security in partnership with Waterstons, Vopak's IT consultants.

Control Center, IndigoVision's IP video and alarm management software allows operators to view and analyse live and recorded footage, from any camera, from any point on the network. This facility, when combined with a powerful alarm handling environment, duplex audio switching, site reference maps and analytics, is at the heart of the system. Vopak has utilised this flexibility to install a number of Control Center workstations both in the central control room and at other locations around the site, allowing other authorised staff to access the system.

Control Center software is licence-free, which means Vopak can install an operator station for no more cost than a PC. The IP video system has provided Vopak with many benefits including fast image retrieval and greatly improved live and recorded video quality, which can be used for evidential purposes - which the old analogue system could not do. In addition, video footage can also be used as a training aid for Vopak.

"We are delighted with the new CCTV system," says Peter Lloyd, engineering manager at Vopak Terminal London. "The video quality is exceptional and the flexibility of the Control Center software is allowing us to use it as a site-wide management tool." IndigoVision's network video recorder (NVR) software provides three months of continuous storage from all of the cameras.

The 40 CCTV cameras, which are a mix of fixed and PTZ from the original installation, are each connected to an IndigoVision 8000 transmitter/receiver module which converts analogue camera feed into DVD-quality MPEG-4 digital video for transmission over the network.

Loftus adds, "IndigoVision's range of transmission hardware provides options for a total IP-based system or an analog/IP hybrid solution integrating existing analogue hardware. In fact, any analogue CCTV camera can be connected to the network using IndigoVision's transmitter modules. Distributed architecture and NVR solutions allow CCTV footage and alarms to be easily recorded offsite for post-event analysis."

This ability allows the system to perform many functions including:

* Theft and criminal activity - deterrence and detection of theft, acts of terrorism and other criminal activity.

* Security perimeter breaches - virtual tripwire and motion detection can automatically trigger intrusion alarms.

* Auditing - time-stamped video allows confirmation of site activity, product loss, deliveries and conflict resolution.

* Health and safety breaches - video clips of incidents can be exported as training aids and evidence to H&S authorities.

* Vehicle movements - vehicles such as fuel tankers and deliveries, can be monitored for deviation from normal routes or behaviour.

* Operational effectiveness - post analysis of plant activity and incidents can help improve processes and procedures.

Access control integration - recording of people and/or vehicle registrations when entering the plant, triggered by normal access control entry or illegal access alarms.

The combination of Control Center software and the network creates a 'virtual matrix', which offers a far more flexible and scalable video-switching platform than the original analogue matrix that it replaced. Similarly, any workstation can access recorded video from the NVR server. Hardwired or wireless IP networks also allow rapid deployment of new cameras for new construction areas or security hot-spots.

"This scalability also means that it is easy and cost effective to expand the system in the future as cameras can be added to any point on the network without the need to run new cabling," explains Loftus. He adds, "The majority of petrochemical plants are still running analogue systems, whether it is an analogue video switcher or an analogue input based DVR solution. IndigoVision's IP video products provide the necessary components to allow a staged upgrade to total IP."

Importantly, this approach also allows a 'hot transition', whereby the digital system is installed in parallel with the existing system and no camera feeds are lost while the system is commissioned and tested. This makes it possible to easily and cost-effectively integrate CCTV surveillance into petrochemical operations and establish off-site control rooms or monitor multiple sites from one central point.

Petrochemical plants, where investigations tend to require intense video review, cannot afford lowered frame rates, dropped frames or jerky stop-start video. IndigoVision's in-house designed IP Video transmitters stream and record high-resolution (4CIF) video continuously at 25/30 fps, without frame dropping and boast the lowest latency figures of any competitive video-streaming product. Loftus comments, "A petrochemical site is a high motion, 24/7 operation, therefore, the surveillance system needs to be performing to these high standards at all times."

Fault tolerance and reliability are another area that petrochemical companies and regulators insist must be reflected in its CCTV systems. IndigoVision's system addresses this with robust hardware design of video encoders and network video recorders (NVRs) and flexible system configurations. Failsafe redundancy is provided through using back-up NVRs and dual network connections to achieve zero-point failure systems.

"In fact many plants are using IndigoVision's IP Video for operational management as well as security," says Loftus. CCTV workstations can be used to facilitate and/or enable a wide range of tasks such as security; operational management; engineering; health and safety; general management; and installation, scalability and migration.

"IndigoVision's IP video solution can be fully integrated with other security systems such as access control and perimeter protection and can consolidate all alarms from these systems within Control Center. This tight integration between systems can bring significant benefits to the user.

"The Royal Vopak project serves as a great example of what can be cost-effectively achieved with IndigoVision's product offering. There is a great opportunity for African and South African petrochemical players to apply the lessons learned from this state-of-the-art installation and, as a consequence, enjoy the same levels of benefits and risk reduction that Vopak is now enjoying."

Share this article:

Further reading: