Flying high: how drones are optimizing Aramco’s operations

• Aramco has been expanding the use of drones across our facilities since 2015
• By using drones, we are reducing maintenance costs and inspection times across our facilities
• Drones are also playing a pivotal role in monitoring our facilities for potential methane leaks

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), popularly known as drones, offer a unique combination of mobility, data capture capabilities, and precision, making them an invaluable tool across a multitude of sectors. Whether it’s the construction sector, which uses drones to survey and map land, the agriculture sector which deploys drones to plant seeds and spray fertilizers, or the security industry, where they are used for surveillance of large areas, drones have become increasingly popular and versatile across industries in recent years.

And the energy sector is no exception. Drones are adding value to a wide range of operations from pipeline inspections to environmental monitoring within the energy and chemicals business by performing tasks that are difficult, dangerous, or costly for humans.

Our drones take flight

At Aramco, we began deploying drones in 2015 mainly to carry-out inspections across seven facilities. Over the years, in line with our mission to deploy breakthrough technologies to accelerate our business performance, we have continued to expand drone deployment. We are now deploying over 100 drones across most of our major facilities.

While being crucial for the inspection and maintenance of our onshore and offshore sites, storage tanks, and power system infrastructure, drones are also supporting a wide range of our field operations like emergency response, security surveillance, aerial mapping, and environmental monitoring.

For instance, at our Khurais field, a fixed-wing, battery-powered drone maps desert areas, surveys field infrastructure, and detects potential leaks and other issues related to the field’s infrastructure, feeding real-time data into a specialized control room. And it does so with precision and in far less time compared to manual inspections. To put things in perspective, if we carried out field inspections manually, two field operators in a car would take about an hour to check two wells. Using the drone, we can now check 70 wells in four hours.

Another way in which we are using drones for environmental protection is by planting trees. We have piloted drone technology for planting native trees and monitoring the growth of mangroves. Drone planting technology is approximately 10 times faster than the traditional planting method, and can potentially plant thousands of trees per day by dispersing nutrient-rich seed balls across large areas. In our pilot project, we planted 100,000 native trees using drones and achieved a plantation success rate exceeding 88%.

Unlocking potential

Today, we are experiencing numerous benefits of expanding drone deployment in our operations.

By using drones and wearable technologies to inspect pipelines and machinery, the Uthmaniyah Gas Plant (UGP), for example, cut inspection times by 90%. At our Abqaiq Plants facility, robots and drones perform almost a third of routine operations, such as safety inspections. Through the use of drones alongside other 4IR solutions, the facility increased its power generation potential by 4.5% and reduced its carbon intensity by 31.8% between 2019 and 2022.

We are also deploying 3D modeling drone scanning devices for construction operations across our major projects. Using drones, we measure and analyze the topography of construction sites and then, create operational plans based on the topography data. This has shortened the process of surveying, earthwork volume calculation, and construction planning from several months to just a day or two.

With the full potential of drones yet to be unlocked, we aim to continue looking for new drone technologies and studying potential benefits of drone deployment, in order to deliver increased operational efficiency and workplace safety, as well as to help reduce the carbon emissions of our operations.