Robots are coming to the oil patch

Hello from Houston, where the robots are coming for your job.

Just kidding, sort of. I was at a summit of the Energy Drone and Robotics Coalition, where companies were displaying some of the most sophisticated robots and drones being used in the energy industry today. Inside the convention centre, it sounded like a hornet’s nest as people were demonstrating their technology.

The machines are deployed to, among other things, conduct safety jobs and maintenance inspections in hazardous environments. The risks are serious, ranging from pipework degradation to leaks and spills. The robots are also an invaluable source of data for companies hoping to maximise efficiency of operations.

Mark Mildon, chief executive of ExRobotics, which makes a Wall-E-esque robot designed to conduct inspections in oil and gas plants, has been working with several energy majors including Shell, BP and Repsol to introduce their robots.

The baby boomers and generation X were “all retiring and taking their knowledge with them”, he said. “One of the huge advantages of robotics and AI skills is that you can essentially recreate those skills and make them consistent,” Mildon added.

The $300,000 yellow robot is about a metre long and half a metre tall, and is equipped with various cameras and sensors, allowing it to navigate a plant and read different gauges. It can also be programmed to detect two types of gases in the case of a leak and has a microphone to take acoustic profiles of equipment.

Its brain is powered with two Nvidia Jetson Xavier NX chips, one for the camera and the other for the communications module. It stands apart from its competitors because it is certified to work in hazardous locations, specifically those that pose an explosive risk.  

Mildon said the robot can, for example, do the work of the night shift, where it is becoming increasingly difficult for companies to find workers as a result of an ageing workforce and the struggle to recruit young people, who are sceptical of fossil fuels.

“If you’re a typical operator in a refinery, it takes 90 minutes to two hours to visually inspect analogue gauges, we can free those [workers] up,” said Mildon, a 50-year-old mechanical engineer who used to work for Toyota. 

Of the 65 ExRobotics robots in the field, most are in Europe with significant expansion in North America and the Middle East planned.

At Shell, the robots have been affectionately named after Minions, the loveable loyal helpers in the blockbuster animated franchise.

Mildon said he was working with companies to deploy robots on offshore rigs, where their value is exponentially greater as it frees up a team of workers who would otherwise have to make expensive trips to platforms to assess situations.

ExRobotics has estimated there could be a need for as many as 100,000 robots to be deployed to conduct inspections in oil and gas plants as well as chemical refining facilities.

Across from the ExRobotics booth, Erik Schultz, chief revenue and strategy officer of Aero Velocity, was holding a demonstration of the company’s drone.

“We do fly this with an Xbox remote, so it’s very easy to get a hang of,” said Schultz, wearing a cowboy hat and bolo tie. 

Aero Velocity offers a series of services, including cleaning — Schultz started out making drones to wash business tower windows — inspections and facility mapping, including 3D modelling and making “digital twins”, a virtual version of assets. He said Aero Velocity was working with companies including BP, Chevron and Shell.

“The sensors and the drones themselves have significantly improved, but the workflow behind the organisation of the deliverables is what’s going to need to catch up next,” Schultz said, explaining that there is a need for greater integration between companies collecting the data and those analysing it. 

“Traditionally an inspector, maintenance team, corporate are all looking at different versions of the same thing,” he said. “They are all trying to view the same asset. What we’re trying to do is have a single ecosystem which is a source of truth.” (Stephanie Findlay)

Data Drill

Russia has received a windfall as the cost of oil has skyrocketed and US sanctions have loosened.

This month, India’s imports of Russian oil are set to hit an all-time high. Fifty-six per cent of June imports have come from Russia, at an average of 2.7mn barrels of oil per day. The previous high was 2.2mn barrels per day in May 2023. On average, India’s imports of Russian oil have surged 89 per cent since the start of the Iran war.

In turn, Russia’s earnings on oil have risen dramatically. It has made $15.2bn in surplus profits above a 30-day baseline measured at the start of the war. This has been cushioned by India’s hot appetite, as China, the second biggest importer of Russian oil, has cut its imports sharply since the conflict began.

And as oil has become increasingly lucrative for anyone who can sell it, a number of US-issued sanctions waivers have made it the easiest since the start of the war in Ukraine for Russia to cash in. 

On March 5 the US Department of the Treasury announced a 30-day waiver allowing India to buy Russian seaborne oil. The announcement came just over a month after Narendra Modi and Donald Trump struck a tariff deal in which the Indian prime minister “agreed” to stop buying Russian oil.

Six days after expiring, the waiver for India was renewed for 30 more days, and on May 18, US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent announced a separate 30-day extension for all “energy-vulnerable” countries.

Last Tuesday, the US let the sanctions waiver expire. “Soon we’ll be able to [increase sanctions on Russia] because the oil is now flowing,” Trump said in a meeting that day with the president of the UAE.

Hundreds of ships are now waiting outside the Gulf for the Strait of Hormuz to open, the FT reported on Monday. (Nolan Shaffer)

Power Points

• How a $20bn bet on an oil refinery outside Lagos paid off for Africa’s richest man.

• Britain’s grid operator issued a call for more electricity supplies as extreme heat pushes up demand for power and reduces the efficiency of solar panels and gas-fired power stations.

• Energy Source Forum: China and the US are the clear frontrunners in data centre rollouts as they battle for AI leadership.

Energy Source is written and edited by Jamie Smyth, Martha Muir, Alexandra White, Rachel Millard, Malcolm Moore, Ryohtaroh Satoh and Stephanie Findlay with support from the FT’s global team of reporters. Reach us at [email protected] and follow us on X at @FTEnergy. Catch up on past editions of the newsletter here.