Langeled

In its first ten days the NCS Live pipeline watch logged 94 encounters by 32 vessels inside the one kilometre corridor around Langeled. 90 of them were fishing vessels moving at trawl speed. 5 vessels passed within 25 metres of the charted centreline, which is inside the positional accuracy of the data, so for practical purposes they were on top of the pipe.

Every figure in this report comes from the public AIS feed and published pipeline geometry. None of it is proof of gear on the pipe. It is a list of who was where, at what speed, and how often, so that follow-up can start from facts rather than from a damage report.

Where the pressure is

When

The vessels

Sorted by number of encounters. The closest approach is the smallest logged distance from the vessel's AIS position to the charted centreline. Owners are taken from the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries vessel register, which covers Norwegian fishing vessels only, so foreign-flagged vessels and non-fishing vessels show no owner.

The one "anchored" row is a mislabel and is not a concern. Hovden Viking was logged at 0.3 knots 930 m from the line at 04:00 on 10 September. Its full AIS track shows a fishing vessel drifting slowly east across the line overnight, broadcasting "under way" throughout, in 360 m of water where no anchor was down. A drifting vessel with no gear deployed poses no risk to a trunkline. The watch's speed-only anchor rule now also requires water an anchor can reach, so a row like this will not appear again.

Grades. On the line is 25 m or less, inside the combined error of AIS positioning and the as-laid charting, so the hull was over the pipe as far as the data can tell. Close is 250 m or less. In corridor is within the 1,000 m watch corridor. Note that a trawler's gear runs 300 to 900 m astern in the water depths along this leg, so a hull graded close can have doors on the line and a hull graded on the line can have its gear well to one side.

The owners

How the numbers are made

Source

BarentsWatch AIS (Norwegian Coastal Administration), full message model with IMO and call sign where broadcast. Pipeline geometry from the Norwegian Offshore Directorate's public dataset. Owners from the Directorate of Fisheries vessel register.

Cadence

The watch runs every five minutes. A vessel is logged once per line per behaviour per six-hour window, so a trawler working the same stretch for a day yields up to four encounters.

Corridor

1,000 m either side of the charted centreline for pipelines. Positions within 800 m of a facility or 10 km of shore are excluded, since traffic there is expected.

Trawling

A vessel with a fishing ship type, or reporting "engaged in fishing", moving between 0.8 and 5.5 knots. This is speed and type, not a confirmed tow with gear on the bottom.

Anchored

A vessel of 40 m or more reporting "at anchor", or holding under 0.3 knots. A dragging anchor is the classic pipeline strike.

Loitering

A non-fishing vessel of 50 m or more moving at 0.5 to 3 knots with its course within 30 degrees of the line's bearing. Three such encounters appear here: a standby vessel, a shuttle tanker and a 50 m vessel, all more than 290 m off.

Distance

From the AIS position of the hull to the nearest point on the centreline, in metres. AIS positions are accurate to about 10 m; the charted line is as-laid and can differ from the true position by a similar amount.

What this window cannot tell you

• Ten days is not a baseline. The watch log began on 31 August 2026. There is no seasonal comparison yet, and a single busy week can be weather or a fishery opening rather than a trend.
• Gear, not hulls, damage pipelines. The data locates the vessel. Where the doors and the ground gear are is inferred from speed and heading, not measured.
• AIS can be off or wrong. Vessels without a transponder, or with it switched off, are invisible. One track in this log, the 24 m vessel broadcasting as Emulator FR500, repeated the same position and speed on three consecutive checks and is more likely a test transponder or a stale track than a trawler. It is kept in the count and flagged rather than silently removed.
• Owners cover Norwegian fishing vessels only. Ten vessels show no owner: six are foreign flagged (German, British, Danish), two are Norwegian non-fishing vessels, and two are Norwegian fishing vessels below the size cut-off of the register extract we hold. Equasis and national registers can close that gap on request.
• Episodes under-count long visits. One row per vessel per line per six hours keeps the log small, but a vessel that spends a day working over the line shows as a few rows. The full track is available for any vessel in the log.
• No contact events. Nothing here says the pipeline was touched. The value is in knowing who to ask before a survey finds a scar.

What the full service adds

• A weekly report for each line in your portfolio, with a rolling twelve-month baseline so a busy week reads against normal.
• Alerts within minutes of an encounter, to email or your own systems, filtered to the lines and distances you care about.
• Owner resolution for foreign and non-fishing vessels, and a draft liaison note for each repeat visitor.
• The same treatment for cables, umbilicals and the 500 m safety zones around facilities, including which owning companies enter them most.
• Your own geometry, including lines not in the public dataset, kept private to your account.