Sky-Futures, the provider of drone inspection services for the global oil and gas industry, completed the first ever oil and gas inspection by drone in the Gulf of Mexico last week for a global oil and gas service and drilling company.
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Drone inspection in the GoM. Image courtesy of Sky-Futures. |
The inspection scope included the derrick, a heli-deck and four cranes on a drillship and was completed in two days. Current inspection methods would have taken 17 days to inspect the same scope of work.
Offshore, Sky-Futures provided a highly experienced crew consisting of an inspection engineer and remote pilot, who had both completed oil and gas drone inspection training at Sky-Futures specialist training center in the UK.
The inspection is the first ever legally carried out in the Gulf of Mexico by a drone for the oil and gas industry. It comes just over 10 months after Sky-Futures received the 46th Section 333 Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) exemption certificate to operate drones in the US, and opened their first North America office in Houston, Texas.
The planning, execution and work flow was supported by Sky-Futures five years of oil and gas expertise delivering work offshore globally in the North Sea, offshore Malaysia and in the Baltic Sea. This experience, including 1760 hours of drone inspections delivered offshore in 2014, has seen Sky-Futures deliver work globally for leading companies such as Apache, ConocoPhillips, Shell, Statoil and Petronas.
“We have proven that drones can be successfully used for more efficient and safe inspections in the Gulf, just as we have already done across the world,’’ Jay Forte, Sky-Futures VP of operations said.
According to the company, inspections completed by drone are safer, faster and more cost efficient than other inspection techniques used at onshore and offshore installations, including rope access and helicopter fly-bys. Inspections prevent personnel being put at risk and allow savings to be made by preventing unnecessary shutdowns. Inspections completed offshore for other clients by Sky-Futures have saved more than US$4 million in operational efficiencies and avoiding unscheduled shutdowns.
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