Aviation monitoring of OOO LUKOIL-Komi pipelines

Monitoring of the fuel and energy complex is one of the largest areas of application of unmanned aerial vehicles. Since 2020, ZALA unmanned systems have been performing comprehensive aerial monitoring of pipeline routes and industrial infrastructure facilities of LLC LUKOIL-Komi.

Aviation monitoring is carried out on the territory of operations of five structural subdivisions of OOO LUKOIL-Komi: TPP LUKOIL-Usinskneftegaz, TPP LUKOIL-Ukhtaneftegaz, TPP LUKOIL-Severneftegaz, NShPP Yareganeft and Usinsky GPP.

The first works at OOO LUKOIL-Komi facilities in 2020-2021 showed high efficiency. About 400,000 linear kilometres of pipeline routes and other facilities were surveyed.

The positive momentum encouraged the continuation of work on this project, so in 2021 a contract was signed to carry out air monitoring until mid-2024.

Unmanned aircraft ZALA 421-16E with new generation target loads are used to perform the work. The aerial survey data is processed by GeoGraphics, an intelligent information system for identification and classification of various objects, which has already proved its worth at LUKOIL's facilities.

One of the features of the new period of work at the OOO LUKOIL-Komi project was the introduction of special ChangeDetection software, which is capable of detecting changes in the underlying surface that occurred over different periods of time.

At the Customer's request, the software products were customised to monitor the status of water crossings.

The purpose of integrated air monitoring of in-field and trunk pipelines and industrial infrastructure facilities is to promptly identify violations, assess the condition and control of the pipeline system, as well as adjacent infrastructure facilities with subsequent transfer of results to the workplaces of responsible persons in real time.