Chevron reports on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) as multipurpose tools for data collection in various contexts. Chevron Upstream Europe is using drones for visual inspection of flare tips on the Captain and Alba platforms in the North Sea, reducing the requirement for scaffolding and manual inspection and mitigating risk to employees and contractors. Chevron is trialing different UAV technologies to optimize image quality.
UAV’s have also been used in Australia to monitor turtle tracks and nests in the vicinity of the Wheatstone Project and in California’s Santa Barbara Channel to monitor natural oil seeps. In 2013, the FAA approved UAVs for use in an oil spill exercise. The San Joaquin Valley business unit is to monitor operations with UAVs equipped with high-definition imaging, elevation modeling and thermal or infrared equipment to optimize the i-Field’s steam flood.
Recent
changes in US federal regulations mean that Chevron will soon be able
to use UAVs for aerial mapping, surveying, threat detection and other
safety issues. Chevron expects that UAVs will soon monitor shipping,
pipeline, production and other operations. Chevron advises that
‘the media’ often misrepresents UAVs as ‘drones.’ The latter are ‘fully
autonomous systems with no human intervention’ whereas Chevron’s UAVs
‘have a human element involved at all times*.’ More from Chevron.
* Wikipedia would beg to differ.
© Oil IT Journal - all rights reserved.