Drones replace worker risk, shorten inspection time, provide cloud-based inspection reports
Eni (ticker: E), the Italian oil and gas major that operates 9,241 active wells worldwide, has contracted with Sky-Futures, a British drone-based industrial inspection company to inspect Eni’s facilities globally using drones. The work represents a three-year contract between the energy producer and the drone technology company.
Eni moves to drones for platform inspections. Photo: Sky-Futures
This is the first contract between a drone-based technology business and an international oil and gas company, according to Sky-Futures, who characterized the contract as representing “a significant shift in the oil and gas market.”
James Harrison, CEO and co-founder of Sky-Futures said, “By partnering with Eni we can further enhance the benefits on offer by analyzing and forecasting operational issues before they happen.” Information on the company’s website offers reduction in risk and man hours as key benefits of using the airborne inspection methodology to replace human inspections.
Drone-based oil and gas facility inspection report. Source: Sky-Futures
Sky-Futures said it will provide Eni with drone data capture, inspection analysis and visualization technology. Sky-Futures says its data analysis software lets operators access the latest information on their assets immediately from anywhere in the world through the cloud.
Eni moves to drone-based platform inspections. Image: Sky-Futures
Eni is involved in oil and gas exploration and production, natural gas and electric power production, transportation and sales, and refining. It reported global oil and gas production of 1.76 MMBOEPD and almost 35 Twh of electricity sold in 2015. In 2015, Eni said its LNG sales of 13.5 billion cubic meters of LNG to the gas and power sector included LNG from Qatar, Algeria and Nigeria marketed in Europe and Asia.
Bloomberg reported that Eni has been on a safety-focused path after injuries that occurred last year on a Barents Sea platform and a fire on an offshore platform off of the Republic of Congo.
