UAV i oljevirksomheten i Arktis

Jeg kan uten videre si at ScanEagle er en gammel kjenning. Den ble presentert for Flyoperativt Forum så tidlig som i 2007. Puma er også omtalt her tidligere, da i en elektrisk drevet versjon.

First Civil UAS Flights will be Over Arctic Waters

Posted on August 14, 2013 by The Editor

A pair of UAS are expected to take to the skies over the U.S. Arctic Ocean this summer, conducting work for the oil industry. Operating the remote controls will be private companies, including ConocoPhillips, Alaska’s largest oil producer and holder of oil leases in the remote Chukchi Sea off the state’s northwest coast.

In recent years, UAS have buzzed over Alaska to monitor oil pipelines, sea lion migrations and meandering ice floes. But only manufacturers testing the technology or public entities, such as the University of Alaska Fairbanks, have been allowed to legally operate them here and elsewhere in the U.S.
Federal Aviation Administration officials said the recent commercial certification of the two aircraft — a ScanEagle and a PUMA — allows them to be operated only above Arctic waters and only by companies that have received FAA approval.
In 2012, Congress established three regions in the Arctic — the Bering Strait, portions of the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean — as test grounds for commercial UAS use. U.S. Sen. Mark Begich wrote the amendment to boost research and development as well as job opportunities in Alaska.
The Arctic is a good place to do that because air traffic is limited, said FAA spokesman Les Dorr. “This is a stepping stone,” said Dorr of the Alaska certificates. “We are encouraging safe integration, but it has to be done in a way that will not post hazards to manned aircraft and people and property on the ground.”
It appears the ScanEagle, manufactured by Boeing-owned Insitu Inc. of Bergin, Wash., will be the nation’s first commercially operated UAS. Insitu has an agreement with ConocoPhillips for the operation of the ScanEagle, officials with the companies confirmed.
ConocoPhillips is waiting for the arrival of a research ship in the Arctic before the ScanEagle can be launched above the Chukchi Sea, an FAA official said. The Houston-based oil giant holds 98 oil and gas leases in those waters, the same region where Royal Dutch Shell hopes to discover a massive pool of undersea oil.
Federal geologists estimate the area contains 12 billion barrels of recoverable oil, but exploration efforts have been put on hold this summer and possibly next, too. The work has been confounded by a number of factors, including brutal weather conditions and a massive ice floe that forced Shell’s drilling rig to temporarily stop exploration.
The ScanEagle will allow Conoco to track such ice movement in the Chukchi, the FAA said. It will also be used to assess whale and other marine mammal migrations.
Amy Burnett, a Conoco spokeswoman in Alaska, confirmed that Conoco has been working with the FAA on “regulatory and safety aspects of this technology. We are in the final stages of evaluating how we can use the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) within our operations and will likely be able to share more later this summer,” she said.