How Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Are Benefitting The Petroleum Industry

PALM BEACH, Fla., Oct. 26, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- FinancialNewsMedia.com News Commentary - Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), commonly called drones, remain the fastest growing technological advancement and sector in aerospace. In the simplest terms, UAS are a tool to collect valuable data for end users; they can help increase revenue, decrease cost, and minimize risk. A number of industries across the world are benefiting from UAS integration into operations to gain access to data that were either previously unavailable or significantly more expensive to obtain.  This same technology can significantly benefit the oil and gas industry by reducing exposure of personnel to hazardous situations, while saving substantial amounts of time and money.  In a world becoming more data-driven, access to quality data is increasingly vital to remain competitive.  UAS are an exciting and efficient new technology that the oil and gas industry can leverage to efficiently collect data to revolutionize upstream, midstream, and downstream operations.  UAS can be extraordinarily beneficial to the oil and gas industry as well with applications from offshore to downstream operations.  UAS applications are numerous and will only continue to grow as we look ahead to the next few years.  A few examples of easily integrated oil and gas UAS solutions with a rapid return on investment include:  flare stack inspections, pipeline monitoring, and 3D mapping.  These three applications leverage UAS technology to collect data currently being collected by other means, but to do so at a fraction of the cost, and more importantly, in a manner that significantly reduces health, safety, and environmental (HSE) risk and exposure to a company's most valuable resource—its people. Active stocks in the markets this week include Plymouth Rock Technologies Inc. (OTCQB: PLRTF) (CSE: PRT), AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVAV), Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC), Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), Curtiss-Wright Corporation (NYSE: CW).

For example, flare stack inspections at refineries are vital to ensure safe operations and minimize downtime due to costly and potentially deadly failures. Conservative estimates place an offline refinery at a loss of $1million per day. Traditionally, flare inspections are performed by either building scaffolding or hiring a ladder truck, where workers inspect at dangerous heights. The use of UAS will not only minimize HSE risk but also takes 20-30 minutes instead of hours or days.  Oil and gas companies can use the data from this quick inspection to determine the need for further repairs minimizing operational downtime and saving millions per averted shutdown. In this case, the cost avoidance from UAS usage creates an annuity-like ROI allowing that capital to be reinvested elsewhere.  One of UAS greatest strengths is local area surveillance, in this case pipeline and tank monitoring. Multispectral sensors onboard a UAS can efficiently aid in detecting corrosion, leaks, or help prevent theft from pipelines or facilities. As some of the midstream infrastructure begins to show the effects of years in service, insurance companies are focusing more on proactive pipeline monitoring. The low operational costs of UAS allow for companies to accomplish that proactive monitoring more frequently than was previously affordable or logistically possible.

Plymouth Rock Technologies Inc. (CSE: PRT.CNQ) (OTCQB: PLRTF) BREAKING NEWS:  PLYMOUTH ROCK TECHNOLOGIES ANNOUNCES DELIVERY OF INTERNATIONAL ORDERS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL OPERATIONS AND PETROCHEMICAL INSPECTION -  Plymouth Rock Technologies ("Plymouth Rock", "PRT", or the "Company"), a leader in developing detection apparatus and unmanned technologies, is pleased to announce the delivery of several new orders for environmental monitoring and Petrochemical inspection. 

Environmental monitoring will be carried out with PRT X-Lite series drones, equipped with a winch and collection cup for deep water sampling. This will study plastic particulates in water and other microbiological impact. The drones will be operated by Swiss University, ETH Zürich.

The Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for petrochemical inspection will be used in Saudi Arabia for essential ultrasound testing of infrastructure at some of the world's highest volume petrochemical plants which includes those owned by Saudi Aramco oil. The petrochemical sale is in collaboration with the Tetra / PRT partner Tritex NDT UK.

"The design approach to our overall UAS product platform has yielded the flexibility to allow the company to address the above markets. We believe that these applications will soon extend to offshore oil and natural gas platform inspection, wind farms, and other remote infrastructure locations" stated Carl Cagliarini, Chief Strategy Officer at PRT

"This is a significant step in our company's growth strategy as we have taken our UAS platform from an R&D phase to revenue generating commercial products." stated Dana Wheeler, President & CEO of PRT.   CONTINUED…    Read this and more news for PRT at:  https://www.plyrotech.com/news/ 

Other recent developments in the tech industry include:

Raytheon Missiles & Defense, a Raytheon Technologies (RTX) business, recently in partnership with Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC), successfully completed the first flight test of a scramjet-powered Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept, or HAWC, for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. Air Force. The companies are on track to deliver a prototype system to the U.S. Department of Defense.

During the test, HAWC was carried under the wing of an aircraft before it was released. Seconds later, a solid rocket motor boosted HAWC to supersonic speeds, where the scramjet engine ignited and accelerated the missile, enabling it to reach hypersonic flight. The test validates the ability of HAWC's airframe and propulsion system to reach and cruise at hypersonic speeds.

AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVAV), a global leader in intelligent, multi-domain robotic systems, recently announced the successful maritime demonstration of a Puma 3 AE small unmanned aircraft system and Switchblade 300 tactical missile system sensor-to-shooter (S2S) capability as part of NATO REP(MUS) 21, Europe's largest maritime unmanned systems operational experimentation exercise, hosted at the Portuguese Navy Centre for Operational Experimentation held in Troia, Portugal in September. The experimentation was part of a United States/United Kingdom Interoperability to Interchangeability (I2I) initiative using unmanned/uncrewed systems.

A key component of the exercise was demonstrating the interoperability of multiple U.S./U.K. control system capabilities to facilitate the transfer through the Puma 3 AE comm relay connection of tactical control and planning tasks of interchangeable, cross-domain assets. This successful demonstration was the result of combined and coordinated efforts of coalition and industry partnerships including the Naval Information Warfare Center's C-SCAPE Common Control System (CCS), the Naval Undersea Warfare Center's CaSHMI system, U.K. Ministry of Defense's MAPLE command and control system, AeroVironment's Crysalis™ ground control system (GCS) connected to the varied control systems utilizing a new STANAG 4586 Level 4 interface, unmanned/uncrewed surface vehicles, unmanned underwater vehicles and manned surface ships from additional NATO allies. The U.S. delegation was led by NAVSEA's Program Executive Office for Unmanned and Small Combatants.

Curtiss-Wright Corporation (NYSE: CW) recently announced that it was awarded a contract by Raytheon Technologies to provide its rugged Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA)-based processor and networking modules for use in the NextGen SMP (Next Generation Special Mission Processor). The NextGen SMP serves as the central processing component of the AC/MC-130J aircraft (also known as the Ghostrider and Commando II).

"We are very proud to have been selected by Raytheon Technologies to support the secure mission processing requirements of this important special operations platform with our rugged commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) modular open system processing technology," said Lynn M. Bamford, President and CEO of Curtiss-Wright Corporation. "Curtiss-Wright has established a leadership role in delivering the numerous benefits of MOSA solutions to the U.S. Air Force and other military forces, and we are excited to provide these critical technologies to support the Air Force Special Operations Command."

Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) is breaking barriers in hypersonic technology, adding to its world-class portfolio another milestone with the recent grand opening of an advanced production facility in Courtland, Alabama, focused on hypersonic strike production. Capitalizing on critical digital factory capabilities to deliver this technology, the corporation is working closely with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to deliver new 21st-century warfare capabilities.

"Lockheed Martin has manufactured defense systems in Courtland since 1994, providing increasingly sophisticated capabilities to protect our nation, allies, and security partners," said Sarah Hiza, vice president and general manager of Strategic and Missile Defense Systems at Lockheed Martin Space. "Our long-time partnerships with Alabama, the Department of Defense, and academic researchers have paved the way to develop the most advanced hypersonic strike capabilities using the best-of-the-best digital technologies from across our enterprise."

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