Oil sands project taps IndigoVision

The Muskeg River Mine, operated by Albian Sands Energy Inc, is part of
the Athabasca Oil Sands Project — a joint venture of Shell Canada Ltd,
Chevron Canada Ltd and Western Oil Sands Inc. The mine extracts 155,000
barrels a day of diluted bitumen by removing a mixture of oil and sand
from just under the surface using shovels and trucks. The material is
then mixed with warm water to separate out the oil from the sand. The
mine complex and associated buildings span an area of 200 square kilometres.

The new IP Video CCTV system was designed and installed by
IndigoVision’s local partner Intercon Security as part of an access
control and security upgrade. As well as the open mine area, the CCTV is
monitoring the truck staging/delivery area, truck fuelling station,
administration buildings and the river water intake/discharge area which is
located approximately 8km from the mine. In addition the system is
providing surveillance of a remote office complex situated 50km from
the mine.

The system was installed using the client’s existing LAN with the
addition of wireless bridges for the more remote locations around the
mine.

“We needed to implement a digital video solution that not only provided
superior image quality but would work with the client’s existing
network configuration,” said Colin MacSween, Intercon Security’s
Director of Sales and Business Development. “IndigoVision’s IP Video
system was chosen because it is field-proven and has the flexibility to
meet the demanding requirements of this wide-area mine project.”

MacSween says no one else in the oil sands is using the network technology that Intercon has used for this application.

In the control room, which is currently located in the main admin
building of the mine complex, operators use PC workstations running
”˜Control Center’, IndigoVision’s enterprise video and alarm management
software. Control Center is at the heart of IndigoVision’s complete
end-to-end IP Video solution and allows the operators to view live and
recorded video from any of the cameras. Seven IndigoVision Networked
Video Recorders (NVRs) provide storage for up to 30 days of video. The
monitoring operation however, will be relocated to a purpose built
security control room in the near future. This will easily be achieved
due to the flexibility of the system, which allows any component in the
IP Video system to be located at any point on the network.

Therefore
the ”˜Control Center’ PCs and NVRs can simply be moved with little or no
re-wiring and minimum disruption. The unparalleled flexibility of the
IndigoVision IP Video solution for this type of application cannot be
matched by a traditional analogue system.

The CCTV cameras, which are a mix of fixed and PTZ domes, are connected
to IndigoVision 8000 transmitter/receiver modules. The 8000s convert
the camera signal to MPEG-4 30fps, high-resolution digital video for
transmission over the network. IndigoVision’s advanced compression
technology ensures that the control room operators can view CCTV images
that are indistinguishable from analogue while minimizing network
bandwidth.

"Our client in this instance has found this  is an efficient way of monitoring locations without the cost of staffing," MacSween said.