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Advancing Offshore Safety & Operational Efficiency in Guyana

Overview

Since 2019 — before the pandemic disrupted global operations — Noble Corporation and Salunda Limited have partnered to enhance drill floor safety and operational performance across Noble’s Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) drillship fleet operating for ExxonMobil in Guyana.

The collaboration has delivered a phased deployment of Salunda’s patented digital red-zone safety technologies — Latch Hawk®, HaloGuard® and Crew Hawk® — followed by industry-leading innovations that further safeguard the wellbeing of personnel working in hazardous areas.

Industry Context

An industry wide focus on pipe drop incidents revealed vulnerabilities in conventional processes, and highlighted the need for technology driven risk reduction. A growing requirement for effective monitoring and control of the red-zone to protect personnel and improve operational efficiency.

Challenges

  • Control pipe-handling risk across the HHI fleet

  • Close the sensor gap between latch command and actual latch status

  • Reduce reliance on spotters and manual latch verification

  • Implement predictive maintenance to improve fingerboard performance and reliability

  • Minimise red-zone exposure and improve crew situational awareness

  • Measure and increase adherence to “job by design” operational protocols

  • Monitor and support continuous improvement in the red zone using data driven insights

  • Implement scalable safety technologies across multiple assets

Impact

  • Elimination of pipe-handling risks caused by undetected fingerboard malfunction

  • Early prediction of failed and suspect latches to optimise predictive maintenance schedules and reduce operational disruptions

  • 40% overall reduction in unauthorized red-zone entries

  • Detection and mitigation of potential ‘line-of-fire’ hazards

  • Increased visibility into procedural compliance and operational consistency

Phase 1: Latch Hawk 2019 to 2020
Latch Hawk was deployed, and integrated with the Drilling Control System, across all four HHI drillships in Guyana, providing real-time visibility of fingerboard latch status, detection of mismatches between control system commands and actual fingerboard status, and a comprehensive suite of analytical dashboards providing information on latch performance and history. This significantly reduced pipe handling risk and eliminated the historical dependence on spotters.

Phase 2: Crew Hawk 2023
Noble introduced Crew Hawk to monitor personnel location, provide warning for workers in the “line of fire”, alerts for unauthorized red-zone entry, and capture behavioural analytics. This enabled Noble to reduce red-zone exposure, prevent incidents and improve operational discipline through measured adherence to standardised ‘job by design’ procedures.

HaloGuard and Intellilift: 2024 and 2025
Fully Dynamic Zones: Intellilift enabled real-time streaming of equipment status and position data to generate fully adaptive, dynamic red-zones based on actual equipment movement – reducing dynamic zone violations by approximately 70% compared to static status-based equipment zones

Robotic Hazard Detection: HaloGuard® computer vision / AI detection of unauthorized crew in the vicinity of the RTX pipe doping robot on the Noble Bob Douglas.

Noble Perspective

Kelby Ladner, In-country manager, Guyana said:

“The Latch Hawk system installed on our fingerboard has enabled interlocks to prevent asset damage and reduce potential drops. Latch Hawk also provides high value data for overall maintenance planning as the system monitors all fingerboard latches and is a great system for visualising overall fingerboard status. Since deployment of Crew Hawk we have been working collectively to optimize for overall effectiveness – we have structured the red zones to be in alignment with pre-determined “Job by Design” processes, and this step coupled with Intellilift deployment enables more precise dynamic red zones based on specific operations to be implemented. The Red Zone violation data gathered enables the team to understand how work is being performed and where there is opportunity to improve which supports precise execution. This has been a collective journey and we continue to work together to further optimize the system for improved precision.”

Salunda Perspective

Alan Finlay, CEO of Salunda said:

“It is gratifying to see the vision described in our patented concepts realised in an operational setting obtained from the intersection of camera and sensor-based real-time location technologies with demanding customer requirements for improved safety in the redzone. We are very grateful to Noble Corporation for guidance and collaboration. Our partnership delivered sophisticated and intricate digital solutions in a remote, demanding and busy new province for the offshore E & P industry.”

Next Steps

To date, the Noble-Salunda collaboration has delivered real-time awareness and automated protection across Noble’s HHI fleet in Guyana. Subsequent phases will focus on further optimisation, and assessment of additional Salunda Red Zone capabilities – such as automated equipment “pause / stop” in the event of “‘line of fire” detection – ensuring that Guyana is among the safest and most efficient operating environments in the offshore industry.

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Optical Red Zone monitoring

HaloGuard leverages optical ranging cameras and AI machine vision technology to precisely track equipment and personnel in monitored areas.

Used standalone – or in combination with Crew Hawk – HaloGuard boosts crew safety and operational efficiency

More info

Wireless Red zone monitoring

Crew Hawk employs advanced radio frequency technology to track the location of crew and equipment within designated areas.

Used standalone – or in combination with HaloGuard – Crew Hawk enhances operational oversight and situational awareness.

More info

Fingerboard latch monitoring

More info

Latch Hawk is a fingerboard monitoring solution, which actively monitors the real-time status of latches and other safety-critical equipment, eliminating the need for a spotter or camera.

It also delivers the data-driven insights required to deliver significant improvements in fingerboard performance and reliability.

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Optical / AI

  • Optical ranging & machine vision
  • High definition and time of flight cameras in single Orb
  • Exact crew location measurement
  • Unaffected by situational factors
  • Fewer units than 2D only systems