Drone adoption in the Oil and Gas Industry revolves around strategic deployments for remote monitoring and surveillance of assets during regular operations and in emergency situations. Drones perform a variety of functions in the Oil and Gas Industry, ranging from simple indoor and limited space inspections to complex applications such as corporate research and examining the physical condition of pipelines.
Key trends of drone application in the Oil and Gas Industry
Remote Monitoring & Surveillance
Drones are used in the Oil and Gas Industry for remote monitoring and surveillance of infrastructure components, equipment, tankers, trucks and other assets. Drones can provide a 360-degree view for monitoring field operations. Remote monitoring using drones is also enabling Oil and Gas companies to inspect unmanned production platforms.
Inspection & Predictive Maintenance
The Oil and Gas Industry uses drones for inspection of essential oil refinery production equipment, chimneys, smokestacks, jetties, storage tanks and other potential sites without human involvement. The advantage of using drones for inspection is their ability to swiftly and securely carry out inspection-related activities that require a long time, if done by humans. Drones featuring ultrasonic sensors and high-tech visual inspection equipment, including infrared cameras and thermal imaging devices, can aid to perform close and non-disruptive inspections of oil and gas assets. This methodology has proved to be highly effective in assessing the condition of oil and gas pipelines, identifying system deficiencies and structural defects. Based on industrial research, use of drones in the Oil and Gas Industry to conduct inspection, can increase efficiency up to 33% and reduce inspection costs up to 50%.
Combining drone data with advanced data analytics, allows the companies to predict the current status of the equipments and anticipate the likelihood of breakdowns or leaks.
Methane Emission Management
The Oil and Gas Industry is directing increased attention to reducing methane emission to support the worldwide campaign against global warming and climate change. To achieve this objective, companies are purchasing a wide range of sensing devices that can either be permanently installed on the target asset or mounted on drones.
Emergency Response
Drones can provide a bird’s eye view to an industrial accident or a natural disaster. Drone imagery and video analytics assist in plotting and mapping the progress of oil spills or fire incidents. This can enable companies in managing emergency response and directing resources to the right places, while ensuring the workers safety.
Material Handling and Delivery
Technology companies worldwide are currently experimenting with the reliability of drones for delivering products for various consumer-oriented and health-related Industries in VLOS and BVLOS scenarios. Drones can also be used in the oil and gas sector, to transport payloads to the production platforms located nearby. Although restrictions on the size and weight of the loads may limit the feasibility of using drones, it can certainly be considered as an alternative to deliver smaller loads.
Safety Enhancement
Safety is a significant concern, not only in the Oil and Gas industry, but in other Industries as well. Drones enable companies to eliminate risks related to their employees’ lives, by remote monitoring places dangerous for humans. Though certain situations need human involvement, drones can minimize human participation time to a huge extent.
Faster & Cost-Effective Inspection
Inspection performed by humans, halts production, leading to considerable downtime and loss of revenue. Using drones instead of humans for inspection saves a lot of production time. The ability of drones to conduct inspections at a fast rate, saves working hours which can be used for other essential tasks. Drones can accomplish a task faster as compared to humans, as they can navigate through cramped areas faster than humans.
Not only do drones save time, but are also cost-effective. Inspection by humans requires multiple staff members, while drone-executed inspection involves fewer employees, probably an engineer and a drone pilot. Employees have to be paid for the assigned work, but drones don’t. Drones are a one time investment, requiring only maintenance charge and pilot fees.
Conclusion
Drones have proved to be precise, highly manoeuvrable, and cost-efficient in the Oil and Gas Industry, by carrying out numerous tasks, such as inspections, management and transportation network.
Through the increasing use of Drones, Oil and Gas Industry are enhancing the quality of their inspection, improving the safety and wellbeing of employees and lowering the typically high costs related to manual inspection and analysis of Oil and Gas systems.