Vår Energi has contracted technology supplier Vissim to implement upgraded oil spill detection technology at the operator’s installations on the Norwegian continental shelf.
Under the agreement, Vissim will provide a new and upgraded oil spill detection solution to Vår Energi. Both the Balder FPSO and the Ringhorne processing platform will be equipped with the new solution.
“We are installing a cost-effective solution, reusing hardware already installed, that significantly enhances the quality of the oil spill monitoring,” says Håvard Odden, director of Vissim’s North Sea operations.
The regulatory requirement for oil spill monitoring and detection is that operators shall possess detection technologies which combined makes them independent of weather conditions.
Håvard Odden, director of Vissim’s North Sea operations. (Image credit: Vissim)
All installations on the Norwegian continental shelf are equipped with radar technology for vessel tracking. The two-in-one solution from Vissim allows both vessel tracking and oil spill detection using the same radar. One general challenge with radar-based oil spill detection systems is that the image processing technology generates false alarms which operators must monitor and respond to manually. Such false alarms can be caused by heavy rain, vessel wake and other phenomena.
The new solution from Vissim has taken 1.5 years to develop and is based on input from operators on the Norwegian continental shelf. The radar-based solution uses upgraded image processing technology to detect even more, but capitalizes on machine learning to teach the system what needs to be responded to and what should be ignored.
“The new system has much higher sensitivity which means that it will detect smaller oil spills. It capitalizes on machine learning and artificial intelligence, which means that the number of false alarms will drastically decrease which in turn means less stress on operators. This increases the reliability of the oil spill detection system while it also reduces operators’ costs,” adds Håvard Odden.
Vissim’s oil spill detection system is cloud based and complies with the highest IT security standards.
