US wants satellites on oil rigs and weather buoys

WASHINGTON - The United States plans to put sensors on oil rigs and weather buoys to spot security threats at sea and may use satellites, unmanned planes and commercial jets to monitor ships as far as 2000 nautical miles away.

Rear Admiral Joseph Nimmich, a top coastguard official, said the steps would be part of efforts to thwart any seaborne attacks by al Qaeda or other militant groups by detecting threats early and "moving the border as far out as possible".

"Right after 9/11, we started realising that for us to be successful, we have to understand more about what goes on in the maritime world," he told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

The quest for what the coastguard calls greater "Maritime Domain Awareness" is included in a new maritime security strategy under review at the White House, which could get approval in six to eight weeks, Nimmich said.

Coastguard pilot projects have already put radio receivers on privately owned oil rigs and government weather buoys which pick up routine Automatic Identification System (AIS) ship signals that identify vessels and their cargo.

The coastguard can then check the data from these signals against available intelligence and other resources, looking for inaccuracies, anomalies or anything suspicious, to assess potential threats.

But the oil platforms and buoys can only pick up these signals a few hundred miles out to sea.

"What we are testing is various ways of getting that information from as far offshore as possible," said Nimmich, who heads the Maritime Domain Awareness programme. He said the coastguard wanted to push a current 75-mile tracking radius to 2000 nautical miles, and ultimately across the globe.

The agency has asked a satellite communications company to look into picking up these signals, but it has so far only made "preliminary inquiries" to see if airlines would be willing to do the same.

Nimmich said putting radio receivers on small, unmanned aircraft could also be an option.

Efforts to gather information from ships up to 2000 miles away from the United States could raise some concerns among neighbouring states and the shipping industry.

A 2000-mile reach would include vessels in the territorial waters of many other countries including Canada, Mexico, and parts of Central and South America.

The information on ships' location and cargo can also be commercially sensitive and provide competitive advantages if it falls into the wrong hands.

The coastguard says it will ensure the data is protected, and it is trying to allay the concerns of neighbouring states and the shipping industry.

Ships above 300 gross tons -- which account for the bulk of vessels crossing oceans -- must transmit the AIS signal, which gives information such as the vessel's size, speed, location and direction, as well as data on its cargo.

While this information is not a foolproof means of spotting threats, it helps the coastguard assess risk and whittle down the number of approaching vessels to focus on those which trigger red flags. Some 7000-8000 foreign vessels dock in the United States each year.

- REUTERS