Oil India Limited (OIL) is the second largest hydrocarbon exploration and production Indian public sector company with its operational headquarters in Duliajan, Assam, India. OIL is engaged in the business of exploration, development and production of crude oil and natural gas, transportation of crude oil and production of liquid petroleum gas. The company has over 100,000 square kilometres (39,000 sq mi) of licensed areas for oil and gas exploration.
Equipment failure such as breakage or leaks can occur for many reasons, including overage of structures and material failure, natural ground movement, accidental hot-tap, and third-party interference. Large amounts of oil and gas can be lost following a pipe failure, and more importantly, hydrocarbon leaks can damage the environment through contamination and pollution, seriously affecting ecological health and human security. Developing and implementing monitoring systems that can continuously assess the state and condition of oil and gas pipelines is essential.
Furthermore, monitoring pipeline networks also involves acquiring knowledge of the impact pipelines have on the environment over time, and how they affect vegetation and wildlife. Traditionally, monitoring pipeline networks has often been restricted to visual inspections or volume and mass balance measurements. Currently, most of the monitoring is still performed using conventional methods, mainly through periodic inspections by foot patrols and aerial surveillance using light aircraft or helicopters. Although ensuring a high level of security, the cost of monitoring methods where there is intensive human involvement in the measurements is also very high. Furthermore, the main disadvantage of the methods used for monitoring and inspection is the potential for late detection of failures, when the output (oil or gas) has been reduced, or the environment has already been affected and damaged. In oil India Limited, the drilling of High-Pressure High Temperature (HPHT) exploratory wells in Krishna Godavari (KG) basin involves high risk & high cost operations with exposure levels among the highest in the completion sector.
With the help of UAVs, it is more compatible & efficient to study the harnessing for basin to extract hydrocarbon resources. Moving to utility factors, the most widely used monitoring methods for oil and gas transmission pipelines are foot patrols along the pipeline route and aerial surveillance using light aircraft or UAVs. Patrols help to prevent placing pipelines, the surroundings, and the security of supplies at risk. However, they have to be carried out at regular intervals throughout the year, and regardless of weather conditions. The economic cost associated with these approaches is therefore also very high.