Annually an estimated 100–150 subsea cable faults occur world-wide with fishing accounting for nearly half of all reported faults, according to a report by UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre and the International Cable Protection Committee.
When a cable is damaged, the cable company typically does not receive any notice from the mariners involved and it may be unclear whether those mariners were even aware of the incident.
The substantial effects of cable faults and downtime underpin the importance of identifying and documenting perpetrating vessels to provide evidence for insurance purposes and to avoid similar future incidents.
Subsea telecommunication cables constitute a backbone of the global communications network. They play a key role in current and planned transnational infrastructures which gradually will integrate worldwide power markets and supplies.
Despite regulating activities in protection zones around cable infrastructures, damage caused by vessels through, for instance, bottom trawling or anchors does occur. The economic and societal consequences of this can be significant.
Gatehouse Maritime’s service for subsea cable monitoring increases awareness in the surveillance zones, and provides the intelligence required to optimize preventive measures at sea level and focus inspection and maintenance efforts at the most exposed cable areas.
All activity in the defined surveillance zones is logged which provides the best possible evidence for correlating the occurrence of damages with vessels identifiable through AIS data.
Advanced algorithms detect zone-specific events that could potentially interfere with the subsea power and telecommunication cable infrastructures. Vessels approaching and entering the protection zones can be automatically notified and warned.
A high degree of system automation reduces the need for manual operator intervention to an absolute minimum, thereby ensuring low operational costs.
Bo G. Christensen, Project Manager at TELE Greenland
As part of the increasing demand for offshore surveillance, GateHouse Maritime, has won a contract issued by gas transmission system operator, GAZ-SYSTEM. With the 5-year contract, GateHouse Maritime will provide data analytics to automate monitoring of a new gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea which will deliver Norwegian gas to Danish and Polish households.
Read the press releaseDo you want do know more about our Asset Protection solution for subsea cables?
I’ll answer any questions you might have and show you how our solutions can benefit your operations.