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New Technologies from Thales for Safety, IT & Physical Security for the Oil & Gas industry

On 26th and 27th November 2008, Thales presented  new cutting-edge technologies at a complimentary symposium at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre to an invited audience.

From a high accuracy real-time personnel and asset tracking system  to a fully integrated Command and Control system, from a revolutionary permit to work  system to the latest telecommunications technologies, Thales was  proud to present six different solutions that can help the Oil & Gas operators to optimise the operational efficiency of their assets while ensuring the highest security and safety conditions for their staff.

Malcolm Webb, CEO of Oil & Gas UK comments:
"It is of vital national importance that the UK maximises the recovery of its still substantial oil and gas reserves. This will demand the dedication of considerable financial and human resources and the continued application of leading edge technology. Much of that technology will come from within our own industry but there is also a great deal that we can learn from others. I thank Thales for arranging this event to give us the opportunity to consider some of the possibilities they see for technology transfer from other industries."

The Operations,  Safety, Security, and IT decision-makers of the Oil & Gas industry joined us to experience live demonstrations of each of these 6 new technologies:

Optimising Your Assets Through Centralised Command & Control
Thales has over 30 years experience in developing integrated command and control systems for customers in the military and civil fields.  This presentation will show how this experience can be applied to the Oil & Gas sector to provide an integrated solution, which captures and validates data that can be used throughout the organisation during normal operation, whilst providing relevant, useful information in difficult and emergency situations.  This approach has enabled operators of critical national infrastructure to optimise their assets whilst maintaining their investment in legacy systems.   New developments in technology can improve the security of your personnel and assets and provide enhanced operational advice.

Biometric Integrated Safe System Of Work
Integrated Safe System of Work (ISSoW) is a key tool in ensuring the safe operation of Oil and Gas installations. However, such systems can only be truly effective if user identities can be quickly validated and definitively authenticated. For this to be implemented in practice Thales; world leaders in providing advanced authentication and identity management through their SafeSign solutions, have joined forces with Cresent; a pioneer in the area of ISSoW with their WorkSafe product.   During the event in Aberdeen there will be a demonstration of the integration of Thales' industry leading fingerprint recognition and identity management technology with WorkSafe from Cresent. This shows a groundbreaking ISSoW solution where worker identities can be positively and accurately registered, identified and managed securely throughout their lifecycle.

Lock-on - High Accuracy Real Time Personnel & Asset Location
Lock-On is the system from Thales that improves the safety of workers in hazardous environments and helps to improve the effectiveness of emergency response measures.  Lock-On can locate an individual, or asset, to within 1 metre in 3D (e.g. in a multi-storey/multi-level facility) and it can do this up to 1km from a base station. The system, to be demonstrated at the event, provides a position update every second and, for example, could be used to track a lone worker or road tanker's progress through a plant or ensure that personnel are moving towards the correct muster points in an emergency. Lock-On does not require a large amount of infrastructure or extensive cabling and is therefore easily installed in an existing plant at minimal cost.

Situational Awareness - Securely Integrating Site Data
This demonstration shows how Thales can simply and securely integrate data from a wide variety of systems to show site leaders and managers the overall condition of their site - and what is happening on it.   The demonstration brings together data from operational, security and work management systems and merges this private data with public information from the internet to provide a complete picture.  By using an underlying open data architecture together with our security protection system, Thales can bring these data sources together and share them securely among multiple disparate user groups, and at different locations, whilst ensuring data validity, security, and privacy.  As well as the complete picture, SSA also provides custom views for users such as maintenance teams, emergency services and even the media and general public in the event of a major incident.

Upstream Collaboration
Collaborative working can generate significant benefits to improve time to market, reduce risk and increase productivity with the upstream energy business. It allows any combination of knowledge workers on and offshore, the ability to collaborate on any document or application with video anywhere in the world. nuVa provides a true collaboration environment to make decisions and resolve issues faster. The demonstration will comprise a working nuVa session over the Internet and satellite BGAN from The Huddle Desk to a stand alone PC and the Enterprise unit working with a remote, ruggedised BGAN terminal. The demonstration will seek to address topical issues such as; Risk management related to KP3 allowing plant engineers to share photo evidence and discuss issues with the head office risk management office to comply with HSE requirements; Upstream exploration processes linking a remote geological survey unit to share seismic data and structure a next stage of exploration programme; and plant design and build to allow large scale programmes to collaborate on critical design and project build processes with all parties, creating a greener and more effective way of delivering complex projects.

Robust, Secure, Global Communication Solutions
This presentation will demonstrate Thales capability in seamlessly connecting oil & gas installations worldwide by providing highly available, robust, secure, integrated global communication networks and system solutions, for critical operational systems.  A number of safety systems will be addressed, which provide robust protection of assets and personnel in environments where a high standard of inherent safety is a mandatory requirement.  It will also show the resilient telecommunications networks available, including Thales Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) units, which allow for simultaneous voice & communication data communications and how Thales 'Safe Move', allows secure access to your applications from almost anywhere in the world.