Drones reducing risk in offshore oil and gas inspection
The global drone market is growing, and risk-reducing use cases are emerging across the offshore oil and gas sector.
Eve Thomas
5/28/20241 min read
A variety of use cases for drones are materialising across both onshore and offshore oil and gas, many of which are helping to reduce risk in the sector.
GlobalData’s new Drones in Power report outlines that the global drones market is seeing rapid growth, having been worth $15.2bn in 2020 and estimated to reach $89.6bn by 2030. The strongest area of growth in the market is expected to come from commercial drones, which will be worth $57bn by the end of the decade.
Cheaper and safer than alternatives, drones offer remote access to difficult-to-reach sites, useful for the monitoring and management of offshore oil and gas assets. Tethered drones, visual line of sight (VLOS) drones and beyond VLOS (BVLOS) drones have found demand among major players in the sector.
In fact, most major players have now adopted drones in some capacity, including Chevron, Equinor, National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) Repsol, Saudi Aramco, Shell and Total.
The technology offers a myriad of uses, with drones used for payload delivery, oil spill detection, integrity inspections and the monitoring of drilling towers and elevated work sites.