Demand for robots in oil and gas is revving up at a fast pace

GlobalData’s latest thematic report, ‘Robotics in Oil & Gas’ discusses the growing prominence of robotics in the oil and gas industry amid increasing complexities in operations and sustained pricing pressure affecting profitability.

Robotics in oil & gas

Demand for robots is revving up at a fast pace, due to robots becoming progressively cheaper, smarter, more flexible and easier to train. This is making it easier for robots to infiltrate new industries and spawn new use cases at scale. The oil and gas industry has geared up to deploy robotics across a wide range of applications in the upstream, midstream and downstream segments, primarily to drive productivity and efficiency amid volatility in crude prices.

Robotics offers the potential to automate repetitive, yet critical, tasks in field operations, such as taking readings from instruments, cleaning, and inspecting assets for signs of corrosion or wear. Recent technological advancements are enabling operators to deploy robots in terrestrial, aerial, and underwater configurations to carry out tasks that may be too risky to be undertaken by field personnel. Moreover, ageing infrastructure is necessitating regular inspection of these assets and autonomous drones are being used due to their sheer number and issues related to accessibility.

In the last few years, although robotics has improved considerably in terms of usage and reliability in the oil and gas industry, the costs associated with these technologies is still a major deterrent. To overcome this concern, robotics technology providers and oilfield service providers are devising new business models, such as Robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) to drive the deployment of these technologies in field operations and reduce uncertainty over the total cost of ownership of robots.

GlobalData’s thematic research identifies companies, such as Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Gazprom, Repsol, Equinor, Total, Saudi Aramco, Sinopec, and ADNOC, having considerable exposure to the robotics theme in the oil and gas industry.

Leading technology providers and oil and gas companies in the robotics theme

Source: GlobalData