Drones Might Soon Deliver Goods for Offshore Rigs

Shipping, logistics, and marine services provider GAC has teamed up with a Singapore-based start-up to work on the delivery of supplies to vessels and offshore platforms via drones.

GAC and the start-up named F-Drones will work to develop large-scale drones that can deliver up to 100kg of supplies over 100km to vessels and offshore platforms.

Testing is currently underway on F-drones’ 3rd prototype that is capable of handling items up to 5kg over 50km.

"F-drones can help to reduce cost, time, and manpower in sending supplies to vessels. Its drones are fully electric and are therefore environmentally friendly in reducing carbon emissions when supplying to ships. At a time when social distancing as a measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is at the top of the agenda for many, delivery by drone can also help reduce social contact," GAC said.

"Joining forces with F-drones is part of GAC’s drive to embrace technology to develop new ways to meet the demands of the maritime industry we serve,” says Lars Bergström, GAC Group Vice President, Asia Pacific & Indian Subcontinent. “When fully commercialized, drones can be an attractive alternative to launches and helicopters for delivering supplies to vessels, especially for on-demand deliveries.”

GAC’s Singapore office will be supporting F-drones in a test flight to deliver packages to vessels in the near future, GAC said.

F-drones has received Singapore’s first Beyond-Visual-Line-of-Sight (BVLOS) drone delivery permit and is now scaling up commercial delivery with an off-the-shelf drone.

“We are working towards launching our first commercial drone flight of our proprietary drone which can fly 10 times further later this year,” says Nicolas Ang, Co-founder & CEO of F-drones. “The support of GAC and all our partners is vital in helping us make this happen.”

Besides GAC, F-drones counts Eastern Pacific Shipping, the Schulte Group, Techstars, Port XL, Entrepreneur First, and Hafnia among its supporters.