TPI January 2014

business & market news

Pipeline monitoring system installed Fotech, a specialist in distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) technology, has completed installation and commissioning of its LivePIPE pipeline monitoring system for Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), in partnership with Commtel Networks. Events are detected and classified within seconds to a location accuracy of a couple of metres, giving pipeline operators the information to prevent environmental damage and unforeseen cost.

Operating primarily in oil and gas and pipeline sectors, Fotech has developed the Helios system that converts an opt- ical fibre up to 40km long into a solution that is equivalent to tens of thousands of individual vibration sensors. Real-time detection of the vibrations caused by acoustic disturbances along the fibre is translated into information that will aid the oil and gas operator in exploration, production and delivery activities, or a pipeline operator with intrusion detection, leak detection or pig tracking activities. Commtel Networks provides advanced engineering and technology solutions focused in oil and gas, power, transportation and defence sectors, delivering high-performance converged communication and surveillance systems in India and abroad. The company builds converged telecommunication networks for voice, video surveillance, data and Ethernet traffic over optical fibre, radio or copper links.

Shriprakash R Pandey, Commtel’s CEO, said, “The Fotech LivePIPE system addresses a pressing safety and security need of the oil and gas industry where pilferage and accidental damage to pipelines are real problems, and the completion of this installation is a key milestone for us and the wider industry. We have worked together with Fotech to commission a highly reliable system. The system is providing an unprecedented level of visibility of activity and threats around the pipeline to our customer.” Fotech CEOChris Shannon commented, “With a significant number of system installations underway around the world, completion of the LivePIPE commissioning for HPCL is testament to the success of the Fotech-Commtel partnership. This installation also presented an extremely challenging environment from an acoustic point of view. That we have been able to deliver such an accurate and reliable service while filtering out substantial local ‘noise’ really demonstrates the power of our LivePIPE monitoring system.”

The system will monitor activities on 75km of the Mumbai-Pune-Solapur product pipeline, protecting it from theft and interference, while preventing nuisance alarms caused by innocuous activity. The specific installation environment is highly prone to nuisance alarms due to heavy industrial and agricultural activity along the pipeline. Fotech developed localisation features that effectively segregate nuisance activity from genuine unusual events, increasing the confidence levels of detecting genuine intrusion incidences. The System Acceptance Certificate was signed and released by HPCL and the system is now under stabilisation. Based on Fotech’s Helios distributed acoustic sensing technology, LivePIPE is a pipeline monitoring system that detects and locates intrusions and interference activity along thousands of kilometres of pipeline in real time.

Fotech – UK www.fotechsolutions.com

Commtel Networks – India info@commtelnetworks.com www.commtelnetworks.com

Heavy industrial activity around the Mumbai-Pune-Solapur pipeline can cause nuisance alarms

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January 2014 Tube Products International