British energy giant BP's technology arm, BP Ventures, has made a $5 million investment in a cloud-based geospatial analytics software company to monitor environmental changes, including methane emissions, using advanced spectral imagery and machine learning, BP announced in a statement Tuesday.
BP’s investment will help explore and enable US-based Satelytics Inc. to develop its technology further and scale its applications throughout the oil and gas sector, the company said.
BP said the investment would contribute in its aim to install methane measurement at all major oil and gas processing sites by 2023, publish the data, and then drive a 50% reduction in methane intensity of its operations.
With high-resolution spectral imagery from the planet’s surface using satellites, drones, and planes and combining them with proprietary algorithms to create unique electromagnetic signatures, Satelytics will be able to detect environmental changes, including methane releases or leaks.
Recalling BP’s goal to become a net zero company by 2050, David Hayes, BP’s ventures managing director for the Americas and chief operating officer, said advanced technologies used in Satelytics, which integrate multiple approaches to efficiently detect emissions, have the potential to be a valuable tool to support this goal.
"Satelytics is modernizing the energy sector by making data about physical assets more accessible and digestible, leading to better decision making,” Morag Watson, BP’s senior vice president of digital science and engineering, was quoted as saying in the statement.
(Anadolu Agency, June 23, 2020)
