ILMA Compoundings - July 2020 - 12

INDUSTRY RUNDOWN

Petroleum Reaping
the Benefits of Drone
Programs
Petroleum companies of all sizes have long been experimenting with the use of drones. Today, both off-theshelf and specialty unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs),
the more official term, play a crucial role in monitoring,
maintenance and emergency-response planning.
MONITORING
UAVs quickly proved their advantage over traditional methods of monitoring well sites, pipelines, construction sites and
infrastructure. Static cameras have a limited field of vision,
whereas drones provide 360-degree views. In addition to
better visuals and more complete and accurate data, the use of
UAVs allows for increased security at sites and of assets, while
reducing human hours and personnel travel time.
PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE
Those 360-degree views provided by UAVs are also the
reason companies use drones in preventive maintenance
programs. A drone can inspect pipelines and plants that
are difficult and dangerous for humans to access. At the
Energy Drone & Robotics Summit held in Houston in
May 2019, the common consensus of the Oil and Gas Asset
Owners Roundtable was that drones increase safety because
they eliminate most instances where humans are sent into
hazardous conditions.
Martin Robinson, an industry global robotics systems engineer,
said one company was able to eliminate over 3,000 confinedspace entries, keeping employees out of harm's way. Because
UAVs can carry out inspections faster and more frequently, issues
are identified before they become serious problems.
EMERGENCY RESPONSE PLANNING
When the unthinkable happens or an alarm is triggered,
companies can send out a drone to capture images and
video before putting personnel in potential danger. Realtime monitoring allows event surveillance from a safe
distance and assessment of where resources need to be
deployed without putting more workers at risk. Companies

JULY 2020

| COMPOUNDINGS | ILMA.ORG

are also using drones to map oil spills more efficiently and
collect enhanced data to mitigate the effects of a spill.
FLYING INTO THE FUTURE
The industry's investment is worth it, as the more we learn, the
more we will see an increase in safety as human hours continue
to be reduced. The massive amounts of data collected open the
potential for creating digital twins of oil platforms, pipelines
and even factories. A digital twin is a virtual representation of
these structures. Simulations can be run on these digital twins
to improve the structural design or layout and work out any
problems before building or modifying them. A company can
also run worst-case-scenario simulations on the digital twin to
plan, in detail, the best response.
Researchers are even investigating the use of drones to
conduct gear oil sampling in wind turbines. If it works, this
inventive use of UAVs will eliminate unnecessary, costly and
dangerous maintenance visits by humans.
EXPERT ADVICE
If you are thinking about implementing your own drone
program, the experts at the Energy Drone & Robotics Summit recommended building an advisory team that includes
people from across the entire business to help champion
your program. Consider that the quickest way to show a
return on investment is by documenting staff hours saved,
hours employees are out of harm's way and the reduction of
accidents. Also, be sure to measure the speed in identifying
problems and detecting the state of equipment and, as a
result, the time it takes to fix those problems.

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ILMA Compoundings - July 2020

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