Exploring How Drones could be Used to Remotely Inspect and Monitor Pipelines in the Oil & Gas Industry

Our Client & Their Goals

Our Client, a service provider with operations in the oil & gas sector, was looking to expand their services with innovative drone-based infrastructure monitoring solutions. The market for remotely inspecting infrastructure using drones is growing quickly, but monitoring pipelines used by the oil & gas industry with drones is still uncommon, and regulatory standards vary internationally.

Before attempting to develop drone-based pipeline monitoring services, our Client wanted to determine the commercial feasibility of this proposed application, and identify the markets that would be easiest to enter. Our Client needed to identify any relevant limitations of drone technologies and region-specific regulations that would prevent the development or commercialisation of these new services. If our feasibility assessment confirmed that their proposed venture would be successful, they also wanted a complete plan for services that would establish them as the leader in this segment.

Since our Client had no experience with drone technology, they recognised they needed expert assistance in exploring and assessing their plan’s feasibility. We helped our Client achieve their goal by selecting the legal and technical experts necessary evaluate the feasibility of their drone-based service strategy.

CamIn's Solution

We assembled two teams with world-class experts who were selected based on their experience in drone regulations and drone development.

Our regulations team assessed the legal standards governing the operation of drones around oil & gas facilities in six geographic regions, determining which three regions had the least restrictive regulations. These three regions where further analysed to forecast and confirm whether the current regulatory standards are expected to remain favourable in the near future.

Our technology team assessed state-of-the-art drone capabilities and identified the specific characteristics that would make a drone suitable for the client’s target service applications. We also ensured that these technological characteristics complied with the relevant legal standards identified earlier, selecting the markets with favourable regulations for our Client’s proposed monitoring services. 

Both teams then investigated the existing competition in this application area, including both drone-based and conventional service solutions. This analysis ensured that our Client could avoid application areas where a drone-based services would face strong competition, leaving only those that were most promising for new drone-based service applications.

Based on our analysis of current drone capabilities and desirable characteristics, we identified potential applications our Client could target and the types of services they could provide.

The Impact

Our market and technology assessment clearly highlighted the best geographical markets where our Client should plan to introduce their solutions first. Based on our analysis of current drone capabilities and desirable characteristics, we identified potential applications our Client could target and the types of services they could provide. The results of our expert assessment have provided our Client with a clear path for the efficient and effective development and commercialisation of drone-based monitoring services.