Application of Robotics in Oil and Gas Refineries

The oil and gas industry will continue to boom in the coming future. Obtaining oil and gas from conventional and non-conventional resources will become more and more challenging. This intensifying need will impose very considerable demands on work force, financial and technology capabilities. Since the future supplies of oil and gas are to expand, advanced technology will become increasingly necessary to obtain access to more challenging conventional and non-conventional resources. Therefore oil and gas technologies will be very costly to operate in the coming future due to hostile, hard-to-reach environments. The offshore oil industry will become a complicated many of advanced equipment, structures, and work force. The present work identify potential applications and research directions of robotics in the oil & gas field and explore the obstacles and challenges of robotics applications to this area. This research performs the necessary survey and investigation about the work conditions of robotics and its equipment in the oil and gas industry, especially offshore oil rigs. The oil & gas industry processes are first investigated. The personals and tasks are then explored. Furthermore, this paper reviews the current robotics technology applied to various oil and gas industries. The challenges and requirements are identified for robotics in the oil and gas industry. The requirements of robotics and automation in the oil & gas industry are presented.