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Success Stories Success Stories
EIC Survive& &Thrive Thrive IX EIC Survive 2025
July July2025 2025
Story type #technology (main category) #service & solutions
Benefits
Orion Inspection and Consulting Services
▸ Overcame challenges and gained significant media attention, leading to increased demand for services. ▸ Revenues almost tripled between 2023 and 2024.
Transforming pipeline inspection with innovative robotics technologies Felipe Oliveira
Rebeca Mendonça
CEO
Marketing Assistant
How is Orion Inspection and Consulting Services thriving? Founded in 2021, Orion Inspection and Consulting Services has come a long way, quickly scaling to secure high-profile projects across Brazil, the Middle East, and the Americas. Today, its adaptable robotics solutions are renowned for solving complex challenges in pipelines, confined spaces, and submerged areas, minimising risk while unlocking access where traditional methods fall short. The challenge – Orion has diversified its offering from the outset, currently providing core solutions for pipelines, confined spaces, and submerged areas. That value proposition is underpinned by a suite of innovative, adaptable robotics technologies that enable remote work in hard-to-access areas, reducing safety risks. The oil and gas and renewables industry has quickly become a key beneficiary, with most of Orion’s activities focused on Brazil alongside projects in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the US, Mexico and Columbia. Equally, the firm also serves the conventional power and nuclear power markets. However, rapid growth brought internal challenges — nice ones, but challenges anyway. The company had to quickly evolve its internal processes, reporting systems, and talent recruitment, adapting on the fly to complex client demands. The solution – One of Orion’s core solutions is an instrumented pigging sphere for pipelines lacking traditional means of access/inspection, but the main technological deliverables come from its robtics crawlers and ROV’s, all 100% modular and customisable. Many clients have benefited from this. In one instance, a customer couldn’t use a pipeline due to a lack of access to a tank, with Orion using its robotics technologies to solve this issue. Equally, it also helped a pulp mill inspect a pipeline without halting production, avoiding three days of downtime.
The company’s adaptability towards its clients is undoubtedly central to its value proposition, using incredible creativity to navigate situations that otherwise have no solution. In 2024, the firm provided services for Cenibra, a producer of bleached short-fibre eucalyptus pulp, located in the Brazilian municipality of Belo Oriente. The company had reported water seeping through the floor of its factory, with initial inspection revealing the factory’s water supply pipeline to be the source of the issue. In search of a solution, INGU’s (a Canadian company represented by Orion. in Brazil in exclusivity) Pipers® was identified – a small sphere capable of not only inspecting for leaks and micro-leaks but also providing data regarding the integrity of the pipe wall. There were several major hurdles to overcome for Cenibra. Indeed, the operation of this pipeline could not be paused, being essential to the factory’s production system. Further, stopping the equipment for more than two hours would force a gradual return to activity that would take 20+ hours. With it being a large-diameter, 60-inch pipeline that runs between two reservoirs, there would be no place to recover the Pipers® from the reservoir downstream of the target point, both due to the high flow velocity and the lack of access to this point. The only option was to use a vehicle capable of taking the Pipers® to the end of the line and then returning. To achieve this, Orion used its A-200 vehicle, a crawler for pipelines of 200mm or larger that is 100% submersible (up to a 50-metre depth). With an umbilical of approximately 200m, it would be able to travel the entire length of the pipeline carrying the Piper’s along, allowing Orion to successfully combine two separate services into a best solution for the client. Technical discussions started in October 2023, and it took just over 12 months of planning until the actual execution, including preparations with documentation and process adjustments, as well as operational and risk assessments. However, the results have been significant.
Key findings For young people
▸ In the start-up and small business environment, we all must “wear more than one hat” and adapt to various roles.
For industry
▸ Always remind your employees that giving 100% in a task is not more important than completing the task with the required specifications, safety and deadlines.
For government
▸ Incentives to explore markets where we could bring our solutions such as LATAM or Africa.
Orion Inspection and Consulting Services at a glance: Key products and services: service provider in the remote inspection of pipelines and challenging structures.
Main industries served: ▸ ▸ ▸ ▸ ▸
Oil and gas – 43% Conventional power – 12% Nuclear power – 2% Onshore renewable energy – 2% Others (energy): mining, petrochemical – 19% ▸ Others (non-energy): sanitation – 22% Headquarters: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Year established: 2021 Number of employees: 13 Revenue: £700,000
The team was able to perform the evaluation of the buried water pipeline, mapping all possible points of operational weakness, spectrograms and acoustic anomalies with distances referenced for future evaluations. Further, the firm was able to contribute to Cenibra’s fourth PMCI (Continuous Improvement and Innovation Program) by identifying anomalies with an accuracy of about two metres. Orion in turn has received significant media attention off the back of this project, driving an increase in demand for its services. Indeed, more than 20 firms contacted the firm, with three new contracts having already been signed for robotics inspection services. With its revenues having almost tripled between 2023 and 2024, the company now stands poised for even further growth thanks to its adaptability, innovation and flexibility.