Middlesex UAV tech start-up Sky-Futures awarded three year contract with international energy giant TAQA Global

Sky-Futures, the global provider of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) industrial inspection services, has announced a lucrative three-year deal with TAQA – one of the top 10 energy producers in  the UK’s North Sea,  based in Aberdeen – Europe’s Energy Capital. The contract has extension terms of two additional one-year options.

Sky-Futures delivers engineering inspections and reports using High Definition (HD) video and thermal cameras as well as their proprietary ‘DTL-VU’ software that is used to measure defects and corrosion.  Their global inspection service serves the oil and gas, renewables and utilities sectors.

As part of the contract win, Sky-Futures will create four more jobs – two full time UAV operators and two office-based staff providing full technical reporting.

By using UAVs, the project is aiming to reduce offshore multiple helicopter flights, rope access visual inspections and as well as reducing the cost of existing processes.

TAQA is the National Energy Company of Abu Dhabi and has operations in oil and gas exploration and production, power generation and water desalination and energy solutions.

Sky-Futures is also one of the many innovative businesses achieving GREAT things with support from the Government-backed GrowthAccelerator scheme (www.growthaccelerator.com) – a unique service led by some of the country’s most successful growth specialists, where businesses can find new connections, new routes to investment and the new ideas and strategy they need for their business to achieve its full potential.

The “Business is Great Britain” campaign was kick-started by UK Business Secretary Vince Cable and Skills and UK Enterprise Minister Matthew Hancock in 2013. Designed to ‘build confidence amongst small businesses’, the initiative offers information, inspiration and support for people looking to start and grow a small business.

The GREAT campaign is a partnership between private enterprise and UK Government, to highlight support for businesses aspiring to succeed and to encourage entrepreneurial spirit.

Ex-military Sky-Futures co-founder James Harrison said, “Under the terms of the agreement, Sky-Futures will provide general visual inspections (GVI) of hard to access areas on all TAQA’s 5 platforms in the UK North Sea. They include scopes of work such as live flare tips, exhaust chimneys and under deck inspections.

Working offshore in the UK North Sea, is one of the harshest and most testing operating environments, in my experience. This is where our expertise in, and deep understanding of UAV technology can be utilised to great effect.”

SkyFutures provides UAV inspection services to clients across multiple regions including the UK, Middle East, Africa, Malaysia and Norway. Clients include Statoil, TAQA, BG Group and Talisman Sinopec Energy.