Raven, a helicopter drone being developed by GE at its new $125 million oil and gas technology centre in Oklahoma City, is ‘sniffing’ for methane emissions at well sites. During a trial run in July, GE showed that Raven could find gas leaking from a pair of well sites a half mile from each other in the Fayetteville Shale of Arkansas.

A spokesman said: “Detecting and stopping leaks, a requirement that the Environmental Protection Agency enacted earlier this year, is the first of many planned applications for oil-field drones to makeworkers more productive
in an industry that has suffered billions of dollars in spending cuts, hundreds of thousands of lay-offs and more than 100 bankruptcies in North America over the past two years.

A broader benefit will come from Raven’s custom software, which is used to plan flight paths and easily interpret the mountains of data it gathers.”

GE’s oil-field drone project began last year after some of its other industrial divisions explored how they could use unmanned aircraft. Other applications could include inspecting flare stacks at refineries or checking equipment for mechanical wear and corrosion.