Conventional detect-and-react thinking around pipeline integrity management is causing midstream operators to hit a performance plateau. While new sensor technologies and in-line inspection tools might garner slightly more accurate readings, they still feed into a process that isn’t going to yield operators a dramatic improvement in pipeline integrity. Improving your ability to detect a leak, […]
When we think of autonomous, unmanned technologies – our minds can sometimes go to a pessimistic place. Unemployed workers standing out in the streets, while unflinching robots work without a moment’s lapse in the factory. The reality isn’t so horrifying. These technologies can be used to handle the arduous and dangerous tasks that burden your […]
Imagine you’re a haystack integrity manager. This isn’t a real job, but we’re working toward an allegory, so play along. Day-to-day, your responsibility is to ensure there are no needles in the dozens of haystacks under your company’s ownership. Some would say the task is near impossible, but thankfully, you have the technology to perform […]
For nearly two decades, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been a core component of pipeline integrity management. GIS applications provide a highly-visual, map-based interface that operators use to analyze information from a multitude of sources in a single platform. Even with these open, powerful tools for data analysis, midstream operators are still struggling to get […]
Right-of-Way (ROW) monitoring is often a game of inches that takes place over weeks, months, or even years. Having a clear ROW is important, but performing the necessary inspections can be a burden that siphons your maintenance crew’s valuable time and effort. However, intrusions on your right-of-way can cause damage to above-ground infrastructure, interfere with […]
Pipeline operators have a difficult job that is only getting harder with each passing year. You have to manage hundreds of miles of aging infrastructure, that often exists in remote and rugged locations. In fact, pipelines are only getting more susceptible to leaks and other structural integrity issues as they grow older. Over the years, […]
Niall McCallum Bio: Living and breathing flight testing and deployment, I ensure that SkyX has robust aerial systems in place so customers can deploy their aerial monitoring solution with absolute confidence. Wherever SkyX is called, I navigate the logistics, regulations and overall government-compliance process to enable standards-based BVLOS operations for each of our international clients. […]
Being an asset operator in a midstream oil and gas company today isn’t easy. You need to manage the integrity and safety of aging pipeline infrastructure, often in remote locations, while mitigating risk and controlling costs. What’s more, if you’re like most organizations, you need to do it all while lacking high-quality data to make […]
People constantly ask me how I’m able to accomplish everything I do. Look, I get it, I’m a busy guy. I’m Chief Operating Officer of SkyX. I’m a chef who’s been on MasterChef Canada and hosts pop-up restaurants in his backyard. I have three wonderful teenagers and an all-star writer, photographer, baker of a wife. […]
It seems that roughly every decade, we make an advance in wireless telecommunications that propels our ability as a society forward, enabling incredible new technologies and services. In the early days of cellular communications, around the late 1980s and early 1990s (I won’t bother starting earlier since most of those earlier systems were too expensive […]