Robotics in Refinery Inspections

00:00:02 Narrator
This episode of the Energy Pipeline is sponsored by Caterpillar Oil and gas. Since the 1930s, Caterpillar has manufactured engines for drilling, production, well service and gas compression. With more than 2100 dealer locations worldwide, Caterpillar offers customers a dedicated support team to assist with their premier power solutions.                

00:00:28 Russell Stewart
Welcome to the Energy Pipeline Podcast with your host, Russell Stewart. Tune in each week to learn more about industry issues, tools and resources to streamline and modernize the future of the industry. Whether you work in oil and gas or bring a unique perspective, this podcast is your knowledge transfer hub. Welcome to the Energy Pipeline. Hey everybody. As always, thanks for listening. Today my guest on the show is Tyler Flanagan and Tyler is the Director of Sales and Operations for Eric's Technologies. Tyler, thanks for coming on the show today.                

00:01:06 Tyler Flanagan
Yeah, thanks for having me, Russell. It's great to be here.                

00:01:09 Russell Stewart
Well, I wanted to have you on your Director of Sales and Operations. Formerly you were Director of Service and Operations. So you the guy who's actually done this. We had your CEO on a show earlier this summer talking about your. I think it was the Venus pike climbing robot. Is that right?                

00:01:33 Tyler Flanagan
That is correct. Yep. Our latest and greatest robotic platform for inspection.                

00:01:38 Russell Stewart
Okay, well that's, that's what we're going to talk about today because I wanted to get into actually some actual specifics on this because, you know, in downstream facilities, CUI programs and C. And we have to be careful when we use all these acronyms, make sure everybody understands what they are. CUI stands for Corrosion Under Insulation. And this is very critical factor in downstream facilities. And so you guys, I think not too long ago. Oh, and I should also, I should also mention you're also an NDT certified Inspector, right?                

00:02:26 Tyler Flanagan
That is correct. About. I've spent the, the vast majority of my career in, in inspection in the NDE world. You know, mostly oil and gas, upstream, midstream, and downstream using all types of various methods, various technologies. So I've seen quite a bit over the past 15 or so years.                

00:02:52 Russell Stewart
Okay. And so I was just guilty of what I said. You shouldn't be. While ago, I used the acronym ndt. So that stands for Non Destructive Testing, right?                

00:03:03 Tyler Flanagan
Correct.                

00:03:04 Russell Stewart
So what's an NDT Certified Inspector?                

00:03:07 Tyler Flanagan
It's really an inspector that's certified. There's internal and external certifications. There's a program or a body rather called asnt, which is the American Society for Non Destructive Testing. It's really the leading organization in the US and most recognized globally for NDT inspection and various evaluation techniques and technologies. The purpose is really to Set standards and best practices and certification programs for technicians and organizations. In ndt, you know, it's various methods, radiography, ultrasonic mag, particle visual. You know, there's a wide variety of credentials that qualify personnel based on their knowledge and experience in those methods of inspection.                

00:04:09 Russell Stewart
And so specifically back to the cui, we're talking about Corrosion Under Insulation programs. What is that exactly?                

00:04:19 Tyler Flanagan
Corrosion Under Insulation program is, is really, see, kind of backing up a little bit. Cui, Corrosion under insulation is probably one of the most persistent and expensive problems in, in oil and gas, especially in downstream refineries and chemical plants. Sits at the center of, the center of many budgets. And you know, traditional inspection methods tend to be slow and a little expensive and not as comprehensive. But companies put together programs designed to understand risk of certain process piping and what the consequence of failure would be. And dependent on that risk level that, that gives them an idea. And that program defines which methods of inspection should be used and what percentage coverage of that piping system should be inspected to find that perfect balance of low risk and low consequence of failure.                

00:05:32 Russell Stewart
Yeah, and so you mentioned risk and consequence of failure. So we're talking about potentially severe safety incidents.                

00:05:44 Tyler Flanagan
Absolutely. There's been, gosh, it's unfortunate, but even in the news over the past couple weeks, few weeks, there's been several downstream and midstream facilities that have had explosions. And that's the extreme that this, this can lead to fatalities. It can lead to millions, tens of millions of lost product. And then, you know, that's a huge expense for the asset owner. Not just from a safety perspective, but also from a loss of containment perspective.                

00:06:18 Russell Stewart
Yeah, so you've got environmental consequences as well. Okay, so you talked about, this is a huge line item in their budget, these CUI programs. So. And let's talk about eric's Technologies for just a minute. Exactly who or what is eric's Technologies?                

00:06:42 Tyler Flanagan
That is a valid question. Eric's.                

00:06:46 Russell Stewart
That's my job, Tyler.                

00:06:47 Tyler Flanagan
Yeah, valid question. That's a good way to start. Eric's Technologies is a Houston based robotics and data analytics company really redefining how industrial manufacturing facilities can detect, manage and prevent corrosion. We specialize in robotic inspection systems designed to access and scan insulated or hard to reach piping during that inspection. We're collecting high quality, high resolution data without the need of scaffolding, insulation removal or shutting down the asset. So cost savings through the roof, risk mitigation through the roof, value through the roof. And that's our, that is our goal. That's who we are.                

00:07:38 Russell Stewart
And just Specifically, not too long ago, you guys did a large scale US refinery deployment. And I believe in that one your robotics drove a 89% cost savings over the traditional way to do it.                

00:07:55 Tyler Flanagan
Absolutely. We, we have through, through the use of our robotics and our, our, our, that, that carry certain inspection payloads were able to collect data, more data at a faster pace and at a, at a lower cost. So by eliminating the use of, you know, extreme scaffolding through the use of not having to strip insulation. So a lot of companies, depending on that risk, like I was talking earlier, depending on the, on the risk level, determines what method of inspection can be used. And a lot of times if the risk is high, they'll strip the pipe altogether. In order to strip the insulation, remove the insulation from that piping circuit could require hundreds of thousands of dollars in scaffolding or more recently a rope access, folks hanging from, from ropes, removing the insulation. So not only do you have costs associated, they're auxiliary costs. Costs associated with scaffolding or associated with hanging potentially, you know, hundreds of feet in the air to remove the insulation. Removing the insulation is expensive as it is, let alone those other auxiliary costs.                

00:09:13 Russell Stewart
So yeah, and then you have to replace it.                

00:09:16 Tyler Flanagan
And then you replace it. And so many times you could remove the insulation to find nothing wrong. And you wasted essentially money doing that. Where these inspection collars that we have allow you to get a holistic view of your pipe health before having to remove insulation. So you can take more targeted approach with your, with your money and time. And time is money.                

00:09:44 Russell Stewart
Yeah, time. Time's a big deal there. So like in this particular one that we're talking about here, where you had the 89% cost savings, you also did it a lot faster, didn't you?                

00:09:54 Tyler Flanagan
Significantly faster. A matter of a few weeks, which, which traditionally that took this specific refinery 11 or 12 months to do. So time is money. Like I said, it is what it is. So we're not only, you know, with this 89, 89, 90% cost savings, not just the auxiliary costs, but also on top of that, it's the time you're no longer spending thinking about or actively working on those inspections. We've gotten them knocked out weeks ago. We did that in the first three weeks of the year. One specific example where they would have been working on it all year.                

00:10:31 Russell Stewart
Wow. And not only that, you can inspect more, you can inspect more pipe than versus the traditional methods with the robotic systems, is that right?

00:10:43 Tyler Flanagan
Absolutely. Using, using traditional and conventional NDT methods. Really, we call it more handheld because you do have to hold it right where you. Here at Eric's, we're used to it being on a robotic platform, a crawler, but when you use it, hold it by hand, you can only inspect so much circumferentially of that pipe. So a robot allows you to collect 100% coverage 360 degrees around your pipe, where that's almost impossible traditionally. And if it's not impossible, it's just so time consuming it's not worth their time and money to do that.                

00:11:22 Russell Stewart
And that can, that can leave some holes in the process that create a lot more risk.                

00:11:29 Tyler Flanagan
Right, good. Great point. So part of these CUI programs like I was kind of getting on earlier, a lot based on risk, how much coverage or percentage of that piping system needs to be inspected, let's say 10%, 20%. There's 80% that is left blind and we don't know. And our solution, our robotic platforms allow you to stop playing whack a mole. And that's literally what they're doing. There's assumptions made and you hit and you inspect here and then you inspect, you know, 30ft further down the circuit and you have a failure right dab in the middle. And you didn't check that. This, this platform and this robotic system allows you to inspect end to end 100% coverage of that to avoid the potential or the risk of having an unpredicted and unplanned blowout leak or other serious issue happen on that circuit.                

00:12:30 Russell Stewart
And that's where that Venus pipe cleaning robot comes into play.

00:12:34 Tyler Flanagan
That's correct. We have the Venus pipe crawling robot clamps onto the outside of insulated or bare piping and it drives longitudinally and it drives circumferentially to allow full 360 degree inspection data to be collected.                

00:12:53 Russell Stewart
Okay, so since you were Director of Service and Operations, take me through. What does it take to deploy this? Tomorrow you're going to come in and do my downstream facility. How does that work?                

00:13:10 Tyler Flanagan
It's great. It's, it's, it's easier than one would think. Our, our system is, is broken down into, it only weighs about 20 pounds and it's modular. It's, it's stored in pelican cases. It's transported to the site in the back of a truck or on an airplane as checked luggage. We come on site, it's a, typically a, a two man crew, two person crew rather one that operates the robot, one that collects the data. Very simple to install on a pipe. Very quick. You know, if we're, if we're having to utilize other methods of access, like rope access. That requires an additional personnel, but really, it's just bare necessities. You get two, two, two guys in a robot and we can get to work.

00:13:56 Russell Stewart
Wow. And that's, that's a lot less person time than you would need on, on the traditional method.

00:14:05 Tyler Flanagan
100%.

00:14:06 Russell Stewart
So again, we're talking about, you know, better safety. Okay, so the other critical thing, and I remember talking to your CEO, Craig Malloy about this. It's not just the, the robot. And. Well, let me, let me back up and hopefully I'll remember to come back to what I was about to ask. But the term robot, you know, certain words conjure up images in your mind, and I don't know if everybody's as dumb as I am, but, you know, I hear the term robot and I'm thinking about some kind of, you know, mechanical man or something humanoid. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Okay, that's. That. That's not. That's not what most Robo.

00:15:02 Tyler Flanagan
Right? Correct. That is correct. You see this? You see the one? There's a really cool one. I don't know the name off top of my head that, that walks around Austin. It walks around the streets of Austin. It has a cowboy hat on and is entertaining and it laughs at people and it makes jokes. It's hilarious. But not all robots are like that robot. I'm just seeing a video of it in my head. It's really hilarious. I wish I knew the name of it. Give them a shout out real quick. But robots are more so a means of making humans jobs easier. And I always hear when I speak to folks, inspectors and technicians who do this, traditionally, their biggest fear is that these robots will take over and their jobs will no longer be needed. But as I was just talking about this humanoid type robot in Austin, what you don't know or see, there's someone 10ft away from it, controlling it. So there's still going to need to be someone managing and operating these robots to ensure they're doing what they need to do. So a robot by definition is probably more so a programmable machine that's capable of carrying out certain tasks. And that's just what we have at Eric's. We program it to take to do X, Y and Z, and that's inspection on a pipe. And it does. You plug in some things and it tells you. And it does exactly what you tell it to do. So.

00:16:43 Russell Stewart
Well, I think you nailed it. They're programmable machine. That's what we're talking about here. And it could be welding, it could be, you know, all sorts of things. Okay, so you actually already answered a question I was going to come to. And that is, you know, robotics, you know, they're not going to take over the world and they're not going to destroy all our jobs. It's going to make our jobs safer. And, you know, and then you have to, you know, maybe it opens up other new opportunities because you got to manufacture these programmable machines.

00:17:24 Tyler Flanagan
That's right.

00:17:25 Russell Stewart
Do y' all do that in Houston?

00:17:27 Tyler Flanagan
We do. We have a. Here at Eric's, we have a full engineering department. We have a full manufacturing department here located in Houston where we, we design, assemble and test all of our, all of our robots before they deploy into the field. And again, back on, back on the, the safety aspect, Russell, one thing to note is, is these. You can put a robot where you might not want to put a person, or maybe you put it so you don't have to put a person there. And we've had, unfortunately, several incidents over the past several weeks where we've had explosions or blowouts in certain manufacturing facilities in oil and gas. And, you know, if you had a robot on a pipe near where this happened, we're fine. That can be replaced. What can't be replaced is a human life.

00:18:24 Russell Stewart
Right.

00:18:25 Tyler Flanagan
If you had a human or multiple crews working where that robot was and that happened, that can't be fixed. So just another emphasis on safety. Put a robot where you don't want to put a person. And that's where even with these, they keep calling out other robotics companies. I'm turning into a robotics nerd here. But over the years, there's the, there's robotic dogs that go into refineries and chemical plants with sensors and different inspection tools on there to ensure it's a safe working environment. That's another method. Another application for a robot is, is put a robot where you don't want to put a person.

00:19:02 Russell Stewart
Okay. But specifically now, in these CUI programs, it's not just the robot, the programmable machine. And you mentioned about having at least two people in there. It's also the, the data collection, the, the digital inspection and what it actually reveals and how you manage the data. That's, that's very critical. I think that's one of the specialties of Eric's, right?

00:19:40 Tyler Flanagan
Yeah, Absolutely. And kind of the beauty of the data output that these programmable machines can give you is it helps drive better decisions and it helps make your budget smarter. So, and what I mean by that is traditional inspection methods often leave teams kind of making assumptions. And we've all made assumptions and it's not really a good place to be. And you're making those assumptions based on limited or subjective information. So when you have the data output and the quantity of data that these robots are able to collect, you know exactly where corrosion is occurring and how fast it's progressing. So that gives you more insight to, to make better decisions and use your money in a more efficient way. Your budget.

00:20:36 Russell Stewart
Yeah, like, like how you plan your maintenance. It makes it a whole lot more efficient and economical. And then back to the, you know, we've, we've hit upon the, the safety aspect of it, but the environmental, I think it also helps you look at and examine and control your emissions reduction. Is that right?

00:21:01 Tyler Flanagan
Yes, that's a great point. Didn't think to bring it up. We are currently actively working with the Emissions reduction of Alberta. It's a group in Canada that we did win a grant based on how much emissions our robot reduce and in order for our robots to reduce emissions. How does that work? We're preventing leaks before they happen. We're preventing those loss of containments before they're able to happen. By like we've talked about basically this whole time, we're able to collect more data in less time for less money. It allows asset owners to do that and with more data with it driving better decision making and more targeted approach to your asset integrity. That's how we're able to reduce, reduce emissions is by prevention.

00:22:00 Russell Stewart
So how did Eric's get started in all this?

00:22:04 Tyler Flanagan
Oh, that's a great question. Again, that's what you're good at.

00:22:10 Russell Stewart
I'm on a roll right now. I'm probably about to fall off the cliff though.

00:22:17 Tyler Flanagan
Yeah. So backing, backing up about seven, eight years ago or so. Our company was founded by Diana Liu. She, before starting this company, before starting Eric's, she worked for a very large oil and gas company here in the US she was an engineer. She oversaw various, I would say departments within a specific refinery. And she would always be involved in various risk assessments and she saw firsthand some of the issues that this refinery was running into when it came to inspection and the lack of coverage or data being able to be collected in the field. You know, they're with their normal, under their normal approach and their normal CUI program. I say normal because robotics is very quickly shifting the paradigm and revolutionizing this very old school industry. But she, she saw issues, she searched the market, couldn't find a solution and she Left that role and she went back to school. She went back up to Yale and got her master's degrees, met a couple of incredibly smart engineers up there. Started Eric's, built the first robot out of wood. Tested it out with some of the, a couple of the larger major majors. Again, I don't want to, I don't know if I'm allowed to name it Shell and Exxon. Right. We worked very closely with Shell and Exxon to deploy the, the earlier generations of robots. And then she slowly, you know, was able to secure more funding for the business and she was able to hire some incredibly talented engineers and, you know, operators and the rest is history. I mean I've, I've been, I've been at this company for, I've been with Eric's for about five years now. So pretty early on when we were back, still working out of a garage.

00:24:28 Russell Stewart
Really?

00:24:29 Tyler Flanagan
Yeah, very. That was about, yeah, the end of 2020. We were working in a, in a, shared, like a shared space. I don't know what they call them these days. We work type of a place where we had a, a couple of garage bays and that's where we were doing engineering work and, and, and designing. And now we, you know, we've matured to 30 plus employees, several crews out in the field deploying these robots. We have a dozen robots or so at this point all over the world and we're just getting started, so that's okay.

00:25:03 Russell Stewart
And so you are already international in scope?

00:25:07 Tyler Flanagan
Yeah, we've been, we've had a robot over in the Middle east for a couple years now. We were deploying out to Australia, we've been to the uk, heading over to eastern Asia, Canada. We have a very large presence in Canada. So we're, you know, there's CUI everywhere. It's. Every refinery and chemical plant will have corrosion under insulation and they all have the same struggles. And we're doing our best to help asset owners everywhere.

00:25:43 Russell Stewart
Well, we really appreciate that. And I don't think there's any problem mentioning the majors. I think it just shows their commitment to trying to embrace new technology that makes everything safer and also helps with the environment. And I know people who listen to this show on a regular basis get tired of hearing me say it, but my mantra is the oil and gas industry is not the problem with the environment. The oil and gas industry is going to be the solution to the environment. And this is just another example. So Tyler, I really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to come on and talk about this and Flesh it out a little bit more. Following up on the earlier interview two or three months ago with Craig. So you said I asked some great questions. Did I leave out any I should, should have asked before we sign off here?

00:26:41 Tyler Flanagan
I don't, I don't think so. You did a, you did a great job. You kind of already had an idea of, of what, what we do and, and, and kind of what we're, what our goal is and what our vision is. And you know, all, all I'll say as a, as a quick sign off is, you know, we, we, we're here to, to improve and our, our goal is to help improve safety and help improve the data that asset owners are able to collect with their budgets to allow them more that, so they can allocate their resources more effectively. Right. And that's our ultimate goal is to help make everyone's jobs easier, help make them safer and in turn help the industry as a whole. So that's what I think I know robots will be able to achieve. And here at Eric's, that's what we strive for.

00:27:38 Russell Stewart
And getting that message out is why we do the podcast. We'll put Tyler, your LinkedIn contact info in the show notes and Eric's website address in there as well. And again, thanks to Tyler and, and for everybody out there, as always, thanks for listening. Post us on LinkedIn, tell your friends to listen to us, leave us reviews and we'll see you next time.

00:28:06 Tyler Flanagan
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00:28:22 Russell Stewart
The Oil and Gas Global Network.