Some of the RPAS work being done in Oil & Gas is a bit more sophisticated than taking videos of a flare tip using a quadcopter. In Australia, BG (Shell) are doing well site inspections using a Scaneagle FW RPAS (
ScanEagle - Insitu Pacific Pty Ltd) which covers hundreds of kilometres (i.e. beyond visual line of sight). One can imagine that the operator salaries are on a par with manned vehicles.