Inspections Just Got a Whole Lot Easier with Mobile Scanning Technology

For the oil and gas industry, a critical piece of the operations management is asset monitoring, maintenance planning, equipment repair or design, and installation. This can be a complicated task due to the large amount of equipment that is often used in oil and gas facilities, to include incoming pipelines, filtration, liquid separation vessels, various utilities, compressor skid, and export pipe-related infrastructure. Utilizing Emesent Hovermap mobile scanning technology for monitoring this extensive inventory of equipment allows for:

• Rapid LiDAR scanning of an entire facility of equipment
• Reduced onsite requirements
• Minimized risk exposure of field crews
• High quality 3D point cloud data for assured 3D modeling
• Minimized potential production delays

Those in the oil and gas sector are consistently looking for better ways to streamline these processes, reduce costs, and protect their workers. They also want to be certain that their operations are safe, reliable, competitive, and compliant.

Unfortunately, popular 3D point cloud data capture methods, typically terrestrial scanning, have their limitations. Most commonly they are timely, labor intensive, incomplete, or high risk.

The Mobile Scanning Technology Solution that is Simple and Cost Effective

Emesent Hovermap doesn’t just capture and create representations of structures, it can map almost any terrain or site, no matter the location. This is because the mobile scanning can be performed with Hovermap mounted to a drone, vehicle, backpack, pole, or simply used as a handheld device. It has a plug and play design and quick-release mechanism that allows for switching between different device set-ups.

This means that the oil and gas sector can easily create complete digital twins, or digital counterparts, of their physical assets and their surrounding environment. Why is this groundbreaking for oil and gas companies? Simply put, they can get a rapid LiDAR scan of their equipment for 3D modeling for minimized risk exposure and production delays.

Alleviating the Cost Pressures of Maintenance and Repairs for the Oil and Gas Industry

Using mobile scanning technology to capture a complete point cloud allows you to get closer to hard-to-reach areas more frequently and provides a complete picture of the facility and its equipment. When processed the scan data forms the basis to create a 3D digital twin, which helps the oil and gas sector support their maintenance, operations, and construction planning activities for future expansions, preventing downtime and allowing them to easily plan for new or replacement equipment

In addition to reduced onsite requirements, minimized risk exposure for field crews and less production delays, using mobile scanning technology allows the oil and gas sector to reduce the costs associated with inspections or development. It also allows companies to save time and benefit from a more complete scan compared to TLS.

Lastly, regular scans allow for more frequency of evaluation and provide greater insight into the condition and monitoring of changes over time of physical assets and their surrounding environment. If you’re well informed about the typical rate of deterioration of your equipment and facilities, planning maintenance ahead of an actual needed repair can help reduce overall operating costs and lost revenue due to equipment downtime.

Keeping Your Workers and Facilities Safe

Getting up close to equipment in hard-to-access areas can present hazards for workers, and the equipment itself. Reaching these spots often includes someone going to the top of a tall structure using equipment to gain access at elevated heights with the risk of injury, fall or damage to facilities or tanks. These structures may often be slippery, weak or damaged which presents further risks to the worker.

On top of that, oil and gas facilities present potential exposures to fumes or flammable substances which can make time spent in certain areas of a plant or offshore rig hazardous. While the industry continues to embrace and deploy remote data collection processes to prevent workers having to collect it manually, using scaffolding or rope access, finding an alternative can be difficult. Drones’ flight can be impacted by GPS interference or shadows found in many areas.

Hovermap’s GPS-denied flight capabilities mean operators can stay safe while getting a detailed representation of equipment to monitor when a repair or maintenance may be required. When it’s time to do those repairs, the data generated by Hovermap allows you to understand measurements without visiting the site and repair types needed which makes resource planning and budgeting a much easier process.

Additionally, Hovermap’s Pilot Asset can be used when mounted to a compatible drone that allows operators to maintain a safe standoff distance from the equipment, while still getting close enough to capture the required details. Doing the same with the TLS would likely require dozens of scans and take a considerable amount of time.

Oil & Gas Use Cases of Hovermap

Hovermap’s versatility allows it to be deployed in many situations for those in the oil and gas sector looking to reduce costs and increase efficiency. Some of the common uses include:

Inspections and Repairs

• Inspecting inside machinery or atop structures that might pose risks for a worker
• Gathering and verifying this as-built documentation for maintenance and repairs
• Identifying needed repairs within facilities
• Assessing damages or cracks inside large structures

Hazards

• Evaluating damage to structures after an incident that could present toxicity or burn dangers if people were to enter the vicinity

Evaluation and Planning

• Getting measurements of spaces or terrains to understand what is needed for development and construction
• Creating digital twins for training purposes

Better understanding the state of these assets keeps people safer, helps companies operate more efficiently, and drives costs lower.

To learn more about how the mobile scanning technology of Hovermap can help optimize your oil or gas operation, request a demo with the Emesent team.