Cyberhawk inks five-year software deal with Shell. Becomes oil major’s global drone operator

A remotely operated aerial vehicle (ROAV) inspection and survey company Cyberhawk has secured a five-year, multimillion-dollar software contract with oil major Shell.

Cyberhawk is the creator of iHawk, a cloud-based asset visualization software, which will become Shell’s visualization software platform for all onshore, offshore, and subsea assets, as well as all global construction projects.

The contract follows the successful integration of iHawk at a construction project valued at over $6 billion in the US, where it is now being used by over 800 monthly users. It was also rolled out at further sites in the UK, Central America, and Africa.

Cyberhawk, which has been working with Shell since 2012, said on Monday that it would support the major’s digital transformation strategy, providing a central platform for all digital and visual data sources.

Additionally, iHawk will provide a fully enabled IoT solution by integrating third-party sensors and APIs specifically developed for Shell.

According to the company, the contract accompanies Cyberhawk’s global aviation authorization within Shell. This permits drone-based inspections and surveys across all Shell facilities and marks Cyberhawk as the first and only drone operator to be approved to work on all Shell sites globally.

Chris Fleming, Cyberhawk CEO, said: “We are particularly proud of the collaborative relationship we have built with Shell which has seen us provide a software solution that can be quickly adopted and adapted for a variety of assets, across many sectors including construction, upstream, downstream or subsea.

“This contract is further validation of the strength of our iHawk software solution, which has already been deployed by several customers to transform the way they manage their critical energy infrastructure across multiple sectors including oil and gas, electrical utilities, and renewables“.

It is worth noting that drone operators and innovators were recently testing and pushing the limits of usefulness of drones in the offshore industry.