Powerus Signs $22.3M Counter‑UAS Deal With Private Middle East Oil Firm

Powerus, a U.S. autonomous systems company, announced a $22.3 million export contract to supply a private oil company in the Middle East with a networked counter‑UAS system. The customer was not named. According to Powerus, the system will provide detection, tracking, classification and early‑warning capabilities to protect critical oil and gas infrastructure.

This transaction is unusual because the buyer is a commercial entity rather than a national government. Powerus CEO and co‑founder Brett Velicovich described the deal as potentially changing how counter‑drone products are marketed and bought: private infrastructure owners are increasingly purchasing military‑grade systems rather than waiting for state protection.

Powerus says it will deliver a unified operational picture through command‑and‑control capabilities at the customer's operations center. The company will install baseline infrastructure in phases to meet the customer's operational requirements. Powerus will also supply trained personnel—staffed by people with combat experience against enemy drones—to help operate the systems and assess incoming threats.

The deployed architecture is designed to accept Powerus' Guardian interceptor technology later, which would add active defeat tools to the detection and warning features. Powerus framed the initial work as building out the sensing and command layer now, with the option to expand into kinetic or non‑kinetic defeat if the customer chooses. U.S. export controls and manufacturing Powerus said the equipment for this contract will be produced at its North Carolina manufacturing facility and that the company followed stringent U.S. export restrictions. The U.S. government was involved in approving elements of the system for export. Powerus also noted prior cooperation with U.S. Defense officials who requested help integrating interceptors that had been sent overseas without sufficient radar or trained personnel. Company production and international footprint Powerus is developing overseas manufacturing hubs, including one in the United Arab Emirates, to assemble components such as 3D‑printed parts for interceptors. Public reporting cited by the company indicates affiliated factories produce roughly 3,000 drone interceptors per month, with a stated plan to expand production capacity toward 15,000 units per month by midnext year.

Velicovich pointed to recent uses of drones in conflicts and attacks on privately owned infrastructure—data centers, warehouses and hospitality sites among them—as drivers for private firms to buy their own layered defenses. He summarized the shift in defensive posture as companies needing to expand physical protections into the airspace over their facilities.