The demand for petroleum and petrochemical products is by no means abating. In fact, the market is expected to reach $81.4 billion by 2022 and requirements are set to grow exponentially over the coming years. With such dramatic short-term growth, it quickly becomes challenging to ensure accurate, cost-effective, and timely inspection and maintenance.
As robotic counterparts become a valid substitution for humans in the execution of simple tasks, this shift in thinking is set to accelerate as new resources become reality. It is highly likely within the foreseeable future that many aspects of oil and gas operations will be run autonomously by robots, bringing massive advantages not only to efficiency and cost but to human health and safety as well.
Current Challenges in Effective Inspection and Maintenance
Maintenance practices within the industry have changed dramatically over recent decades. In the past, most facilities only addressed issues after machinery failure, but today’s operations hinge on a risk-based approach by assessing potential threats before failure occurs.
That said, there’s still not much momentum toward proactive inspection and maintenance that exceed baseline legal requirements. There are multiple reasons for this, but they can all be boiled down to a single factor: cost.
In the petroleum industry, even the simplest maintenance operation can cost millions of dollars – and emergency work often proves even more expensive. Facilities often avoid preventative maintenance because of:
- Asset downtime while planned or emergency work is carried out.
- Health and safety considerations, such as the emptying and cleaning of tanks and erection of scaffolding.
- Increased insurance premiums to cover human entry into hostile environments or working at height.
- The need to use specially trained staff to enter such environments.
- Visualization difficulties in hard to reach areas.
- Potential for human error when it comes to recording data when inspecting structures.
- Increased risk of environmental breaches.
Additionally, when assets are in use it’s almost impossible for an operator to have up-to-date information on the condition of every component. With deterioration rates varying over equipment lifetimes and in no specific pattern due to varying environmental conditions, unexpected cyclical loading, and other shifting factors, inspection remains an inexact science.
Robotic Advances to Address Inspection and Maintenance Difficulties
Huge technological breakthroughs in recent years have spurred a wide variety of robotic advances, with companies investing massively into creating real, usable tools that solve many of the current challenges.
For example, French oil behemoth Total has been working on the creation of a lightweight robot that’s able to detect and control leaks, traverse different surfaces, and ascend and descend floors. Chevron has been testing snake-arm robotics that can work within vessels, and ORCA is currently testing robotics and AI that can be used in unpredictable and extreme environments, working either semi-autonomously or autonomously.
The use of both robots and drones can reduce inspection and maintenance times dramatically; tasks that usually take days, weeks, or even months can now be carried out in a matter of days or hours. Another benefit is that these tools can process recorded data in almost real-time, negating the need for human processing and analysis before the next steps are taken.
Take this one step further with the advent of AI and robots should eventually be able to safely work in the same vicinity as humans – something that’s currently not a viable option in this application. But there’s currently a great deal of time and money being invested into making this reality, and it’s only a matter of time before these collaboration robots – also known as cobots – move from the realms of science fiction into the real world.
The Future of Robotics in Petroleum Inspection and Maintenance
With plans to dramatically increase investment into drones and robots over the next three to five years, we’re heading into truly exciting times.
Forward-thinking operators are already embracing tools such as crawlers, inspection drones, and inspection cameras to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and remove humans from inhospitable environments. The next few years are set to bring more solutions to the market that will overcome many of the challenges facing the industry today.
