Underground oil pipeline monitoring is one of the important contents of oil safety work. According to the heat source characteristics of oil pipelines, a remote sensing monitoring study of underground oil pipelines based on unmanned aerial vehicle mounted thermal imaging cameras was carried out. The infrared image-based pipeline identification, pipeline bare and shallow buried identification were realized. And the comparative analysis between infrared images and visible remote sensing images of the same pipeline was performed. The feasibility of infrared remote sensing imagery in the safety monitoring of underground oil pipelines was verified.