IN-SERVICE FLARES INSPECTION BY UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES (UAVs)

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been recognized as tools applied to remote inspection of opened areas, equipments and industrial facilities, but they are still underestimated although their huge potential. This solution represents the best cost benefit for in-service flares inspection, and there are some service providers in Europe and USA performing this kind of service for Oil Companies: the inspection consists of visual and thermographic flare analysis. However, it has not find any evidence of this procedure applied to oil rigs’ flares. The Brazilian Energy Company, PETROBRAS, has many installations offshore and decided to provide the remote inspection solution at the national market through training Brazilian service providers already specialized in aerial photography with UAVs. These providers were submitted to evaluation tests and adapted their systems to use for onshore and offshore sites. This article aims to present a brief review about PETROBRAS’ flares as well to show the results of the first offshore inspection of each service provider. The test was a real challenger performed at the Company’s biggest flare system installed in an oil rig. Three Brazilian service providers were considered approved: Helicamera, Brendler Modelismo e Aerial Inspect.