In the Oil & Gas industry, time is money.

Which means that unscheduled shutdowns and project delays can have significant, long lasting and costly implications.

Yet safety is always of the highest concern which means that inspection of structural and operational assets on oil rigs is always the highest priority – whether it requires a production shut down or not.

But with aerial drone surveys, we can provide visual inspection of key platform assets without the need for a shutdown of operations. This can present significant cost savings to businesses in the Oil & Gas industry who want to adhere to strict health and safety policies without having to sacrifice lost production time.

We are Balmore, one of the leading commercial drone inspection firms in Scotland. We work with multiple oil & gas firms providing both aerial and underwater ROV drone inspection services. We work closely with platform engineers to ensure that any and all inspection work is carried out to the highest of standards.

We can provide visual inspection on:

The benefits of aerial drone inspection

Drone inspection is a fast, reliable solution to visual NDT inspection that offers REAL cost savings over traditional inspection. Our drones can take video, photography and thermal imaging scans of key asset points of interest from vantage points that are simply not possible any other way. On top of the safety benefits of eliminating the risk to human life working at height, drones can conduct their inspection work on the likes of flare stacks without the need for shutdowns. This can present real advantages to operational deadlines on oil platforms.

The speed at which our inspections can be conducted is another massive benefit. Our drone inspection work can be completed within a 30 minute window (dependent on specific requirements).

Spotting issues early

By conducting regular visual inspections on key assets, oil platforms can spot developing issues quickly and plan their repair and maintenance around other production scheduling issues. This can free up additional rig personnel who can be assigned other on-going maintenance work thereby increasing efficient on the platform.

By spotting issues early, issues can be managed and repaired during scheduled shutdown periods. If they are not spotted quickly, they may have to be repaired during unscheduled shutdowns – costing the business considerable financial downtime.

Flare Stack Inspection

The small flames burning off the waste gas of flare stacks may be part of a simple process but the visual inspection of flare stacks is anything but as simple. It has, until the development of UAV, been a costly and time consuming process that required the shut down of production. But it must be done.

Using drones to conduct stack inspections can change all of that.

Find out more

If you would like to know more about how our drone services work and the benefits of using drone inspection services in the oil & gas sector, please contact our Glasgow head office today.