Codifying Robotics: API and Chevron on Turning Proven Technology into Industry Practice

Drones and ground robots have proven themselves in oil and gas operations—reducing hazardous access, expanding inspection coverage, and generating asset data at a scale manual methods can't match. But to scale from a demonstrated capability to an accepted industry practice, we need new codes and standards.

Until robotic inspection data is recognized within the frameworks that operators, regulators, auditors, and insurers already rely on, every deployment carries a parallel conventional process behind it—and the business case never fully closes.

In this webinar, MFE's Zacc Dukowitz sits down with leaders from the American Petroleum Institute and Chevron to examine how that recognition is taking shape.

• Suzanne Lemieux, Director of Security & Emergency Management, American Petroleum Institute, will discuss how API assesses when an emerging technology is ready to be reflected in industry codes and standards—building on API's existing UAS program guidance—and what the pathway looks like for integrating aerial and ground robotics into the broader standards system.
• Richard Hurley, Senior Robotics Engineer, Chevron, will talk about how Chevron evaluates robotics through the lenses of safety, cost, and speed, and how codes and standards can help companies guide deployment, scale adoption, and make robotics part of routine operations.
• Jason Acerbi, Chief Technology Officer, MFE Inspection Solutions, will explore how clearer codes and standards could accelerate robotics adoption, giving manufacturers concrete expectations to build toward and inspection teams greater confidence in selecting and deploying the technology.

Together, the webinar will look at how operator experience and standards development feed each other, and what oil and gas companies should be doing now to position their robotics programs for the industry framework that's emerging around them.