In the Oil and Gas industry, drones are helping professionals to carry out aerial, underground and undersea explorations while enhancing safety and efficiency. As one of the companies shaping up the Oil and Gas as well as the drone industries, Trumbull Unmanned has been able to define what these safeties and efficiencies actually look like. Their success in doing so is just one of the reasons they just received a new contract from ExxonMobil, a multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas.

Since 2012, ExxonMobil has been using, researching and testing drone technology for operations. In 2014, the company started receiving support from Trumbull, and later on expanded the use of drones to include aerial inspections at offshore platforms in Canada and Australia and storage tank inspections at the company’s Fawley, U.K., refining and chemical operations.

“I see significant opportunities for our manufacturing and Upstream businesses to reduce safety risks while obtaining better, real-time information at lower costs by using this technology,” said Peter Hua, ExxonMobbil’s Business Support Manager, information technology.

After working with ExxonMobil during various operations in over 25 locations, Trumbull was recently awarded a 5-year UAS agreement by the company to expand drone data collection and inspections, starting in the US.

For a while now, Trumbull has been using drones to safely collect and analyze data, and serve the energy industry by solving technically challenging problems and promoting environmental responsibility. In the past, Dyan Gibbens, CEO & founder of Trumbull Unmanned and one of our Top 7 Drone Visionaries in Process, Power & Utilities, has spoken to Commercial UAV News to talk about her work, the impact of Part 107, what it means to be a leader in this industry and more.

According to GlobalData’s 2019 Drones in Oil & Gas - Thematic Research, “drones have become integral to the oil and gas industry over the last few years owing to their increasing usability as technology has advanced”. The document identifies oil and gas companies, such as BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Gazprom, and Shell as the leading players in the adoption of drone theme in their oil and gas operations.

Hopefully, contracts such as the one between Trumbull and ExxonMobil, one of the top 10 companies on the Fortune 500 list, show companies of all sizes how important drones are not only right now but also for how they can operate in the future.