Drone oil and gas inspection: which flights count

EPA has approved 19 methods for its oil and gas methane rule, and one flies on a small drone. That rule also has a second survey line open to "any other detection method," and OSHA's plant rule names no method. Whether a drone oil and gas inspection counts depends on which rule it answers to, so sort each flight before it flies.

Which rule does this flight answer to?

Here's the sort for a US onshore site.

That leaves one test. A flight that isn't an approved method, isn't filling an open survey line and doesn't carry OSHA's five items is a look, not an inspection. Looks are useful. File them as looks.

The methane rule is known as OOOOb, and most site types have two survey lines under it. One uses OGI (optical gas imaging, a camera that shows gas) or EPA's Method 21: semiannual at multi-wellhead sites, quarterly at compressor stations and at sites with major production equipment.

The other is "AVO, or any other detection method," where AVO means audible, visual and olfactory. It runs at least quarterly at single wellhead, small and multi-wellhead sites, bimonthly at sites with major equipment and monthly at compressor stations. Single wellhead and small sites have only this line. Alaska's North Slope runs annually.

OSHA's rule is process safety management, or PSM. On flammables, a plant is covered at 10,000 pounds of a Category 1 flammable gas, or of a flammable liquid with a flashpoint below 100 F, on site in one location, with some exceptions. PSM doesn't apply to oil or gas well drilling or servicing operations, or to normally unoccupied remote facilities. That carves out those operations, not wellsites as such, but we read an unstaffed wellsite as usually sitting under EPA's rule alone.

Which methane flights EPA counts

Twelve of EPA's 19 approved methods never leave the ground.

FlybyOps' count of the 19 methods on EPA's list as of October 22, 2026. The sort by platform is our reading of EPA's approval letters.

The small drone is Percepto's Air Max OGI system, approved at the 1 kg/hr detection threshold. At that threshold, a site on the quarterly OGI line screens quarterly with no annual OGI survey (the rule's Table 1), and a site on the AVO or semiannual line screens semiannually (Table 2). A certified OGI inspector reviews the footage, and what they find triggers a follow-up inspection.

The method depends on Percepto's FAA waiver, and the aircraft, camera, software and waiver come as one system. You can fly it with your own FAA-certified pilots, but buying a camera for your own fleet won't get you the method. Bridger's gas-mapping lidar is the only other method that allows an unmanned aircraft, and it's an aircraft-class sensor, not a small-drone payload.

An approved screening flight needs a monitoring plan first, and then it runs on a clock: "You must receive the results of the periodic screening no later than 5 calendar days after the screening event occurs." You can swap an individual screening event for an OGI survey.

The steps after an approved screening flight, from 40 CFR 60.5398b.

The second survey line is wider. A small-drone laser sensor of the kind sold for methane, often called TDLAS, isn't on EPA's list. The list does have lasers (Bridger's, a handheld and fixed installations), but not that payload. We read the line's plain words as letting a flight like that fill the survey with no EPA approval.

That line comes with a repair duty: "Any indications of fugitive emissions using these methods are considered fugitive emissions that must be repaired." A contractor in a DJI Enterprise video sets his "alarm line" at 50, says the sensor "can go as low as 5 ppm," and calls clear flight paths "perfect for EPA audits." He names no rule. As we see it, the alarm line decides how much repair work a flight creates, so write the number down before you fly.

EPA's October 29, 2026 proposal would rescind the Super Emitter Program and subcategorize well sites. It doesn't mention drones, comments run to December 16, and today's frequencies stand.

Our case for drone methane detection beyond what the rule asks comes from a 2024 study in Nature: "Only 0.04-1.66% of well sites contribute the majority (50-77%) of well site emissions in 7 out of 15 surveys." When a small share of sites can carry most of the emissions, frequent looks are worth flying.

At a plant, OSHA names no method and asks for five things

PSM's mechanical integrity section, 1910.119(j), covers pressure vessels and storage tanks, piping, relief and vent systems, emergency shutdown systems, controls and pumps. The word flare isn't on that list, and we'd treat a flare as part of the relief and vent system. Procedures "shall follow recognized and generally accepted good engineering practices." The rule doesn't name API, and it doesn't name a drone.

It does say what goes in writing. Each inspection or test has to identify:

• The date.
• The name of the person who performed it.
• The serial number or other identifier of the equipment.
• A description of the inspection or test.
• The results.

So a flight that carries those five, reviewed by someone qualified, could be the inspection. That's our reading. Whether it meets good engineering practice is your authorized inspector's call, so ask before you plan on it. Also decide whose name goes on the "person who performed it" line, the pilot's or the reviewer's. The rule doesn't say. Anything the flight finds outside acceptable limits still has to be corrected under (j)(5).

A camera sees the outside of the metal. It doesn't measure wall loss or see damage inside it. On the August 2012 fire at Chevron's Richmond refinery, the Chemical Safety Board found Chevron "did not effectively identify a likely piping damage mechanism and the possibility of catastrophic rupture," and the fire "endangered 19 workers and sent more than 15,000 residents to the hospital for medical attention." Scope each industrial inspection flight to what a camera can settle, and leave damage mechanisms to your inspectors.

Before you fly at the site

Ask the site first. One contractor's checklist from around 2016, relayed in an AFPM Q&A, has the unit's Lead Operator told and everyone in the unit notified "at least 30 minutes prior to flight." It adds, "As a drone is not intrinsically safe, Hot Work Permits will be required." OSHA's hot work definition covers welding, cutting, brazing and similar flame or spark work. It doesn't name drones, so a permit like this is a site rule. Find out whether your site has one.

Then get the classified-area drawing, before the flight plan. OSHA's 1910.307 lists "petroleum and chemical processing plants" among the places hazardous locations may be found, and says those areas, Class I divisions and zones among them, "shall be properly documented." Equipment in them has to be intrinsically safe, approved for the location or safe for it. The section covers electric equipment and wiring. Applying it to a drone is our reading, and it's the reading we'd plan around.

The FAA comes next. Under Part 107, flying beyond line of sight takes a waiver, and you wouldn't be the first in your industry to ask. In FlybyOps' count of the 2,272 entries on the FAA's Part 107 waiver list on November 4, 2026, at least 17 waivers are held by 9 oil and gas companies, including refiners Valero, Marathon Petroleum and HF Sinclair. All 17 include 107.31, the line-of-sight rule. A waiver doesn't say what's flown.

If you're buying drones for oil and gas work, check the FCC first. Since December 22, 2025, the FCC's Covered List has stopped new foreign-produced drone models getting authorization, with some exemptions. Drones you've already bought may keep flying.

Two FAA proposals are worth watching, and neither was final on November 4, 2026. Part 108's shielded areas name pipelines, not refineries. The Section 2209 proposal would let refineries producing 100,000 barrels a day or more and gas plants processing 500 million cubic feet a day or more apply to restrict drones near their sites, and your company may want to apply if it qualifies.

What to add to those five for a drone flight

OSHA's five describe the inspection, and a drone flight leaves more to record. This is what we'd add to the file:

• The rule the flight answers to, or that it's a look.
• The permit, and who issued it.
• Who told the unit lead.
• The classified-area check.
• The Part 107 or waiver basis.
• Pilot, aircraft and weather.
• Who reviewed the footage, and when.
• Who owns the finding, and what closed it.

EPA's approved Percepto method is a good model for what a flight file can hold. It requires mission documentation with "the location and severity of leaks, video clips with relevant bookmarks at points when leaks occurred, flight path information, meteorological data, and timestamps." That's one method's requirement, not a rule for every flight, but it's a fair standard to borrow for a flare or a pipe rack.

Spreadsheets and disconnected tools scatter that file. In FlybyOps it starts at the flight log, which is connected to its project, pilot, equipment and compliance documentation and can carry the permit, images and reports. Custom fields give a unit tag and the flight's rule a place to sit. A finding that needs follow-up can go in the risk register with an owner and a review date, and the append-only audit log shows who changed what. Flight Sync files flights from supported DJI aircraft automatically, and you enter flights on any other aircraft by hand. Teams log tens of thousands of flights in FlybyOps each month, mostly BVLOS. How long to keep it all is its own decision, and our guide to flight record retention works through it.

Frequently asked questions

Does a drone inspection count under API 510 or API 570?

That's your authorized inspector's call. MFE, an inspection vendor, relays a Flyability article in which a Bureau Veritas inspector, asked by a Netherlands firm, decided Elios 2 non-entry visual data "was sufficient as a formal inspection tool" for API 510. That's one case, told by two vendors.

How much does a drone oil and gas inspection cost?

There's no independent figure we can point to. The one that gets quoted comes from Flyability, which sells the Elios 3, and it covers one job: "A storage tank inspection can be over 75% cheaper when using a drone compared to scaffolding." It gives no method. We'd say the price moves with access, the aircraft, who reviews the footage, and whether the flight avoids a shutdown or a scaffold.