Operational Efficacy of Transforming Tank Inspection Processes in Oil and Gas

The oil and gas industry, a global sector with $4.3 trillion revenue in 2022, as stated in the Global Energy Review by the International Energy Agency, significantly influences worldwide economic activities, including transportation, heating, electricity, and industrial production. It is expected to grow at a robust Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of over 6% from 2024 to 2030. However, cost pressures are increasing, prompting oil and gas companies to adopt innovative solutions for inspections and maintenance planning to enhance safety, preserve assets, optimize costs, and improve revenue.

The International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP) implies that the use of drones in the industry may led to a 90% reduction in inspection costs. Moreover, in 2022, the American Petroleum Institute (API) published a guide to assist the natural gas and oil industry in integrating drones into their operations. This guide underlines the commitment to worker and operational safety while highlighting that the use of drones is expected to expand significantly with advancements in drone systems, applications, sensors, and techniques tailored to industry needs. The API's guide serves as a testament to the industry's adoption of innovative technologies like drones to enhance safety and operational effectiveness and efficiencies.

It is believed that, starting in 2024, by combining human experience, expertise, and intelligence with automated autonomous drone solutions, AIM software workflow systems, Integrated Risk Management, Industrial Control Systems, and the existing ERPs, the oil and gas companies can substantially reduce operational costs, improve revenue, and better manage risks, while preserving human capital and put people from position of doers into the roles of key decision makers. Technologies are good at detecting but people are better at deciding.

This article evaluates the implementation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology, Industrial Aerial Autonomous Drones, for the execution of recurring, programmable, remote, automated, and autonomous tank inspection rounds at critical infrastructure sites within the oil and gas sector. The objective is to ascertain the impact of increased inspection frequency, decision making, and precision on operational efficiency, economic gain, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors.

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Moreover, the use of Autonomous Drones allows better monitoring, visibility, control, and mitigation over volatile organic compound (VOC) and volatile hazardous air pollutant (VHAP) emissions through the systematic detection and repair of leaks from process equipment. In 2024 and beyond, Airborne Enhanced Leak Detection and Repair LDAR programs are critical in the oil and gas industry, as they help reduce environmental pollution, ensure compliance with environmental regulations, and improve operational safety and efficiency.

The use of advanced technologies, such as infrared cameras, optical gas imaging cameras, acoustic cameras, and autonomous drones, has become more prevalent in enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of Risk Management, LDAR programs, Inspection, Maintenance, Operational Availability, and Reliability processes.

Introduction to Storage Tanks

In a traditional oil refining company, the most common types of storage tanks used to store crude oil, intermediates, and refined products are:

• Atmospheric Storage Tanks –  designed to store crude oil, gasoline, and other liquids at atmospheric pressure. They are often cylindrical in shape with a floating roof or a fixed roof.
• Floating Roof Tanks – with a roof that floats on the surface of the liquid in the tank, reducing evaporation and the risk of volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions. They are used for storing large volumes of gasoline and other volatile organic liquids.
• Fixed Roof Tanks –  used for storing non-volatile liquids such as diesel and kerosene. They have a cone-shaped or dome-shaped roof that is permanently attached to the tank shell.
• Bullet Tanks –  long, horizontal cylindrical tanks with dome ends, used for storing liquefied petroleum gases (LPG) such as propane and butane under pressure.
• Spherical Storage Tanks –  used for storing pressurized gases. Their spherical shape offers uniform stress distribution under internal loading conditions.

Each type of tank is designed for different products and purposes, and the choice depends on factors like the product's vapor pressure, the ambient conditions, the volume to be stored, and the space available at the site.

The periodic inspection of storage tanks is paramount for the maintenance of integrity and safety in oil and gas facilities. Traditional methods, however, are not without significant drawbacks, including extended inspection times , labor-intensive processes, time-consuming tasks, risk averse, permit dependencies, and substantial human resource requirements. These methods are also prone to over 35% to 40% data inaccuracies and between 48 to more than 100 hours delay in presenting inspection results to management for proper decision-making.

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The innovation in UAV technology presents an opportunity to revolutionize these processes. By incorporating FAA approved BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) remote management capabilities with Optical Gas Imaging (OGI), high-resolution visual inspection (HRVI), and FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) thermal and gas detection capabilities, along with Machine Vision, Machine Learning, Change Detection, Anomaly Identification, Risk Rankin and Prioritization, Decision Making and Communication, the UAVs Industrial Aerial Autonomous Drones offer a comprehensive 4-fold descriptive, diagnostic, preventive, and predictive capabilities for infrastructure and asset management, operations, and maintenance, in 3 distinctive operational domains: Real, Digital, and Virtual.

For instance, Autonomous Drones equipped with RGB cameras, (Red, Green, and Blue spectrum cameras), FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared cameras), and OGI (Optical Gas Imaging cameras), using Thermal and Gas Detection capabilities, during tanks inspection, can identify, detect, and localize with >95% accuracy these 20% of tanks in a tank farm that account for more than ~80% of product loss. Drones can do an external tank inspection for 5-8 minutes, giving back to Operations, Maintenance, and Inspection over 10000 hours of productivity per year, while traditional approach could range from 10 hours to 3-5 days per tank, and include 2 to 8 people across 4 and more plants, doing manual tasks 265 days per year, and 90+% manual data collection, with data accuracy not exceeding 60%.  

One additional fact that aggravates the situation: more than 40% of the External Floated Roof tanks, built 20+ years ago are known to have leaks of product (vapor) due to seals, shells, and vapor pressure and vapor recovery systems. External Floating Roof tanks (EFRTs) are known to have leaks of product vapor due to issues with seals, shells, and vapor pressure and vapor recovery systems. Over time, the seals can degrade, allowing vapor to escape, and the shell may corrode or experience wear, leading to further leaks. Additionally, vapor pressure can build up and exceed the capacity of the vapor recovery system, resulting in leaks. Regular inspection and maintenance are crucial to minimize these risks and prevent environmental and safety hazards.

The advent of advanced UAV Industrial Aerial Autonomous Drones delivering ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance), and Target Acquisition capabilities offers a promising alternative in Critical Infrastructure sites, particularly for refinery/logistics/chemical/petrochemical storage tanks used to store crude oil, intermediates, and refined products.

Methodology: In the summer of 2022, in selected locations in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas, in a system of 4 Petroleum Refinery Plants, with total production capacity of over 300,000 barrels per day, and around 400+ in service tanks, an Air Squadron Command of 8 remotely operated BVLOS Autonomous Aerial Drones, were programmed to execute autonomous tank inspection rounds monthly, targeting 12 tank farms inspections per year, per plant, totaling 48 tank farm inspections per year. The technology suite included high-fidelity airborne sensors capable of achieving 99% data accuracy and 100% precision in aerial detection of ground-based leak localization.

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Results: It is believed that the UAVs successfully identified, detected, and localized between 0.05% and 0.1% of liquid yield loss, translating to a gain of 150 to 300 Barrels Per Day (BPD) with an estimated financial recovery of approximately $5.5 to $11 million in potential Lost Production Opportunity (LPO) per annum, considering a market value of $100 per barrel.

Discussion: Significant enhancements were observed in the cycle time of tank inspections, reducing inspection time from 8 hours to 10 minutes— more than a 98%-fold time efficiency gain. Moreover, the frequency of inspections increased 12 times, from an annual 0-1 time per year, to a min of 1 per month 12 times per year. Equipment costs for traditional measures, such as scaffolds, trucks, elevators, cranes, lifts, and other specialty rental equipment can be also reduced, saving approximately $240,000 across four plants. The UAVs reduced the need for personnel to traverse 9,000 miles inside the fence per year for inspections, further reducing exposure to risks, threats, and vulnerabilities, and [MI5] [GB6] enhancing ESG and safety performance. The accrued 10,000 productivity hours (calculated as 3 shifts per day, 8 hours per shift, over 100 days for a team of 4) underscore the dramatic efficiency gains realized through UAV integration.

Henceforth, the shift to UAV-assisted tank inspections has demonstrated a marked improvement in data collection speed, data accuracy, and precision in anomalies and leak detection. This transformation has the capacity to not only optimize the inspection process but also generate substantial economic benefits, mitigated ESG risks, and bolster safety performance. The implications of these findings suggest a paradigm shift in the operations and maintenance of oil and gas critical infrastructure, with UAV technology at the forefront of this change. It was confirmed that under special conditions, and carefully defined, designed, and integrated workflow processes and technologies, people use maximum reliable information to make critical decisions, affecting asset reliability, availability, utilization, and profitability, while managing risk and reducing cost.

The Industrial Aerial Autonomous Drones provide a wide-ranging set of capabilities that encompass description, diagnosis, prevention, and prediction, all aimed at optimizing infrastructure and asset management, operations, and maintenance. These capabilities span three distinct operational domains: the physical world (Real), digital spaces (Digital), and virtual environments (Virtual).

This article includes specific operational effectiveness and tactical efficiencies and improvements that UAV technology brings to tank inspections in terms of EBITDA, LPO, Risk, CAPEX, OPEX, Down Time, Time savings, accuracy, productivity, and ESG impacts, providing a detailed and quantifiable account of the benefits of this technological adoption. I hope that it will provoke interest and inspire actions. For additional information, please reach out to the author, Grigor Bambekov, Former SVP Business Transformation Delek Holding US and current President and CEO of Vistratex, a disruptive innovation consortium, driving the implementation of Industrial transformation from Strategy to Execution.

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References:

Oil and gas industry earned $4 trillion last year, says IEA chief

Oil and Gas Global Market Report

API Publishes New Guide for Innovative Drone Use In Natural Gas and Oil Industry

Unmanned Aircraft Systems: threats and responses

Unpublished results of drone technology implementation in Delek Holding US. This data comes from the Drone Technology Business Case. 

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Grigor Bambekov will be speaking on 'Defining, Designing and Executing An E2E EMS (End To End Emission Management System)' at our upcoming Methane Mitigation Technology & Innovation Summit in Austin, Texas, from June 10-14. Featuring 75+ speakers, site tours, workshops, think tanks, daily tracks to choose from, and more, this year’s Summit will focus on cutting-edge technologies being developed in the sector and global regulations, explored through a range of operator case studies from the Americas, Europe, Asia and beyond. Download the agenda for more information.