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ICEYE Oil Trafficking Detection From Space

ICEYE SAR Data in action! In collaboration with Windward's Maritime  AI™ enabled C4ADS, ICEYE was able to detect a possible ship-to-ship oil transfer during the night.

Challenge: 

The Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) in May 2022 spotted through the Windward platform two oil tankers in the Taiwan Strait as they began to engage in a pattern of behavior suggesting an oil transfer. The time for the detection of the vessels in an anticipated ship-to-ship (STS) meeting was less than 12 hours. 

When illegal oil trading, the tankers switch off their automatic identification systems (AIS) as to not be tracked and to conceal the origin and destination of the oil. It is common practice for oil transfer in secret between tankers on the open sea. These activities are hard to track with the use of conventional methods. In many regions, such as Asia, it is difficult to monitor with optical sensors due to weather conditions (cloudiness, fogginess etc.) and the activities taking place at night. 

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 Source: All images and data where taken by ICEYE's Case 'Dark Vessels Brought to Light: Detecting Oil trafficking from space (https://www.iceye.com/lp/case-study-detecting-oil-trafficking-from-space)