Oil sands mining at Muskeg River Mine  (Photo by IndigoVision)

IndigoVision’s IP Video technology is providing site-wide CCTV surveillance for an oil sands mining complex in Alberta, Canada.  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 200km².

The new IP video CCTV system was designed and installed by IndigoVision’s local partner Intercon Security Limited 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, admin 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.”

In the control room, which is currently located in the main admin building of the mine complex, operators use PC workstations running ‘ControlCenter’  IndigoVision’s enterprise video and alarm management software.  ‘ControlCenter’ 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 ‘ControlCenter’ 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.

For more information, please send your e-mails to swm@infothe.com.

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