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Robots’ Inspection Skills Fit The Needs of Energy Industry

Managing director: Edward Petit de Mange

Revenue: In the double-digit millions, according to Diakont

No. of local employees: 30, mostly engineers

Investors: Undisclosed private shareholders

Headquarters: Diakont’s North American office is Kearny Mesa

Year founded: 2011

What makes the company innovative: Diakont makes robots for inspecting oil, gas and energy assets, offering their services to Fortune 100 companies

Those pipes are unpiggable.

On the face of it, the statement is absurd, but it’s a genuine pain point for certain industries — one that Kearny Mesa-based Diakont relieves for its customers.

Those customers are large utility companies running gas lines. Frequently, a company can send a flow-driven tool, known informally as a pig, through the pipe to inspect it. However, pipes with tight turns can’t accommodate the tool, and are therefore unpiggable.

Diakont builds robotic inspection equipment for pipelines, oil and gas storage tanks and nuclear power plants. The robots use ultrasonic or laser technology. They can also negotiate tight turns that pigs can’t.

The business offers its robots as a service to Fortune 100 clients, producing reports on the health of their assets.

Often Diakont gives their clients new capabilities. For example, its equipment can inspect storage tanks while they still contain a product.

“We’re an innovator, not a me-too,” said Edward Petit de Mange, the company’s managing director.

The business is growing. In fact, it recently signed a deal with the California Governor’s Office to expand in San Diego. In exchange for $250,000 of tax credits over five years, Diakont has promised to add 28 jobs and invest $6.8 million in its California business between 2017 and 2021.

Aging Infrastructure

While Washington plans to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, roads and bridges seem to get top billing. The oil and gas infrastructure, however, is also aging.

Metal pipes and tanks in the ground tend to degrade, so utilities have to keep track of their condition. Failures can have human costs and can also mean big financial losses, so companies have an incentive to keep their infrastructure inspected. Diakont is happy to take the work.

There are several hundred thousand miles of pipeline in the United States as well as more than 50,000 storage tanks, Petit de Mange said.

Diakont robots operate on the end of long umbilical cords that provide power and communicate commands. They can also drop to the floor in tanks full of fuel, and then methodically creep along, keeping track of their position while checking for thin spots and decay in the floor plates.

Nuclear Power Plant Work

The business also makes robots for inspecting commercial nuclear power plants, cutting down on the need for putting human beings in hazardous-material suits and exposing them to a radioactive environment. Diakont robots might inspect the condition of welds or remove dirt and dust from a nuclear cavity.

“It’s like a Roomba, almost,” Petit de Mange said, comparing his product to the popular robotic household vacuum cleaner.

Asked if Diakont works locally at SONGS, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, Petit de Mange said the company has nondisclosure agreements with utilities running nuclear plants.

One of Diakont’s robots uses a basic body produced by Teledyne SeaBotix, a maker of swimming robots based in San Diego’s Scripps Ranch neighborhood.

Growing 20% Year Over Year

Diakont is privately held, with affiliates in the Tuscany region of Italy (which is the overall headquarters for the business) and St. Petersburg, Russia. Revenue is in the double-digit millions, Petit de Mange said, and the company is growing at more than 20 percent year over year. The business is profitable.

Diakont has 11,000 square feet of industrial space in Kearny Mesa. Inside one back room is a 24-inch pipe with a couple of 90-degree turns (making it unpiggable). On a recent workday, several new employees were training on a Diakont inspection machine, looking at spikes on a computer monitor that described the health of the pipe.

A short distance away is a mockup of the bottom of a petroleum storage tank, used to calibrate instruments.

Petit de Mange said the business will probably leave its Kearny Mesa space for larger quarters next year. If conditions warrant, it might move its vehicle fleet to a dispatch location in the middle of the United States. Its core business will remain in California, however.

Local Technology Resources

Why does California still make sense when other state governments would love to lock in Diakont?

Petit de Mange said the state offers talent (UC San Diego and the Cal Poly schools have excellent engineering programs) as well as supporting elements and nearby suppliers. “You can get something in the same day,” he said. The long history of Navy contractors working in the region has also built up talent and resources that complement Diakont’s business.

The region also beats San Jose since it offers lots of technology resources while being less expensive, Petit de Mange said.

Petit de Mange set up the local office in 2011. Diakont also has a satellite office in Houston.

The coming months are high season for pipeline maintenance and inspection, Petit de Mange said, because the demand for heating oil is low.

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