Equinor puts drones to work to survey methane emissions

Norwegian state-owned energy company Equinor has awarded a Denmark-based green tech scaleup with a multi-million euro contract to survey methane emissions from all Norwegian assets using drones.

The Danish company Explicit has been contracted to survey 39 offshore platforms located on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) and 3 onshore facilities in 2025.

To remind, Equinor has set its cap on achieving a 50% reduction in its emissions from the NCS by 2030, then up the ante to 70% by 2040, and work on reaching near zero emissions from its oil and gas production by 2050.

In support of the contract and other projects, Explicit is opening new offices in Norway in addition to its headquarters in Denmark and presence in Germany and Australia.

“This contract is a milestone for us. Equinor is committed to mitigating the effects of methane emissions and the use of innovative technologies such as drones to document emissions. We look forward to working with their team on this year’s methane survey,” said Jon Knudsen, CEO of Explicit.

“It’s important for us to be physically present in our primary locations of operation. We will welcome a new dedicated local team to oversee our services in Norway shortly.”

This year’s survey is part of Equinor’s commitment to methane reporting under the UN Oil Gas Methane Partnership 2.0. The project will deploy Explicit’s Drone Flux Measurement (DFM) Method which uses ‘sniffer drones’ to quantify fugitive methane from whole sites.

The scope includes both site-level measurements as well as measurements of the destruction removal efficiency (DRE) of the flares.

Drone pilot operations will be done in collaboration with UK-based Cyberhawk Innovations.

“The main challenge when surveying fugitive methane is to reliably quantify the emissions rate from the full site – how much methane does the site release to the atmosphere at any given time and what sources emit the most? If we can quantify the volume, we can start to understand the reduction potential and help operators work strategically to lower emissions,” Knudsen said.

“Sniffer drones is a super effective way of measuring these emissions, particularly offshore where surveys must be done over water. We’ve been deploying drones for gas sensing for more than 10 years and we continue to seek new ways in which we can use the technology to make a difference in how emissions are monitored.”