Alaska North Slope Surveying

Frontier Surveys provides industry leading technology, combined with safety and quality in order to bring our clients the best professional surveying and civil engineering services available. We are the oil sector leaders in supporting Alaskan North Slope Oilfield Winter Exploration.  Frontier Surveys provides all services our client’s exploration & winter construction projects will require from the beginning stages of field work to permitting, design, construction and QA/QC.  We have a team of experts with their own individual skill sets that contribute to accomplishing the job safely and effectively, emphasizing superb quality, efficiency and dedication to project schedule. We are your arctic experts, willing to work together as a team to get all jobs from small to big, simple to complex, done and accomplished safely and on time.

Field Wide As-Built Surveys

After everything is finished and all of the infrastructure and rigs are in place our clients usually like to see a field wide as-built of everything on location.  This ranges from the ice road itself, the drill sites and rigs, camp pads and the ice bridges to ensure they meet minimum ice thicknesses for the required loads.  Frontier’s Team can perform these as-builts and get the final as-builts submitted to our clients in a timely fashion so the personnel in town can have the comfort knowing that everything was built properly and meets the required specifications and permitting requirements.

Drill Site & Camp Pad Staking & Grading

After the summer studies program is complete we take the given site’s topo data collected and design a pad that minimizes ice/water fill as much as possible while still maintaining the minimum tundra clearence allowed.  We convert the designed pad’s “surface” into a file that is compatible with our data collectors. We are then able to grade stake any location on the pad in real time.  This provides for safe, efficient staking of all drill sites and camp pads.  With the 3D modeling methods utlized in the office we are able to visually see if our designed finish grade surfaces meet the minimum tundra clearance.  This eliminates time spent in the field with a bad stake out file that does not meet the minimum clearance or required extra non-necssary fill that is only discovered once in the field.  Saving our clients money and time spent re-desigining and staking a finish grade surface that is usable.

Permitting & Project Management

Frontier Surveys prides itself on being the industry leader when it comes to ice road construction. Our team of experienced professionals has over 70 years of combined ice road construction on the North Slope of Alaska. With a strong background in project management, our team implements a scope, schedule, budget concept that ensures our clients success.Frontier Surveys knowledge and experience within Alaska’s harsh environments, challenging terrain, and stringent regulatory compliance laws, makes us the leader of this industry. Working closely with regulatory, and compliance teams, along with several oil and gas companies within Alaska, we have helped pioneer new methods to improve season duration, ensure the environment is protected, and reduce the overall cost of construction process. With safety being the foundation to all our work, we have developed an unparalleled standard amongst our competitors.
Frontier Surveys has multiple different techniques, and applications available, depending on the work scope to ensure the project’s success. Whether it be using Lidar technology, ground penetrating radar, or old fashioned drilling techniques, we have all the tools needed to complete the job. Our team has developed a tracking and reporting process, to meet the expectations of both client and agency requirements.
Our team is prepared to provide BP with permitting, design concepts, engineering of ice roads and floating ice bridges if needed, construction management, quality control and assurance, maintenance oversight, and project closeout to include summer cleanup, and agency collaboration.
Our permitting team has established an excellent rapport with both the local, and State agencies. They are familiar with our team and our process for permitting like type projects.

River & Lake Bathymetric Surveys

Whether it be source lake bathymetric surveys for volume calculations or ice bridge bathymetric surveys for permitting, we have industry leading technology and experienced arctic slope personnel that will get the job done safely and effectively.  We use an inflatable raft with a small outboard for easy helicopter access to remote sites. This coupled with our state of the art sub 10mm Topcon GR-5 GPS and Hydro-LiteTM sonar we are capable of bringing our clients safe, accurate and efficient data with a timely turnaround.  The data collected in these surveys can be used in a variety of modeling methods from 3D to contour maps to river bed profiles to HEC-RAS Modeling.

Ice Bridges

Scouting

From pre-planning the potential ice road corridors with Lidar data to aerially scouting/verifying the chosen routes in the field, Frontier Surveys is the North Slope expert at cost mitigation and route alignment. We are constantly trying to minimize ice fill over tussocks and rough terrain to ensure a smooth, easy to construct route, while also identifying locations for ice bridges that will require minimal ramp access on to and off of river channels.  This combined with our river bathymetric data ensures for a safe, smooth, construction friendly ice road and ice ramp/bridge anywhere on the North Slope.

Design & Calculations

To design an ice bridge, several factors need to be considered.  Weight of the loads being transported, bearing pressures applied to the ice bridge surfaces, salinity of the water/ice being used to construct the bridge and the daunting question of “Can the ice bridge be grounded?”. Once these factors have been determined and calculated, we will design an ice bridge to meet your project’s specific needs. Safety & Quality are of utmost concern and are incorporated throughout the entire design process.

Ramp Design

Once a suitable location has been determined for an ice bridge, a ramp design survey will be performed to calculate the height of the ramp needed coming on and off the river channel.  The height of the bank usually dictates how wide the ramp will need to be, which in turn dictates the amount of ice/water needed to construct the ramp.  A topo survey of the bank terrain and features allows for our team to design a ramp that will minimize imported water and ice as much as possible while also being route friendly.

LiDAR Ground Truthing

Let our team of experts work with you to develop a ground truthing program that meets your needs.  Usually these programs consist of taking existing lidar surface data and adjusting it to match ground “truthed” surfaces or points.  With these methods our clients are able to take a large swath of surveyed area from lidar data and produce accurate maps which match existing ground terrain in the field.

3D Modeling & GIS Mapping

3D modeling is one method used to determine the best route across rough terrain or rivers.  With 3D modeling our clients are able to visually see problem areas associated with rough terrain and river bed topology.  This is a very nice tool to have when designing an ice bridge that potentially could cross an area where a back-eddy that could lead to wash out under the bridge from high pressure and current erosion.
From the raw survey data collected in the field our drafting team is capable of exporting the data into a GIS friendly environment.  Usually these files consist of a .shp, .shx or .dbf.  We work with our clients in order to produce the type of data file they need to work with.

Ice Bridge Stakeout

Safety comes first when staking ice bridges.  Before any work is done over floating ice we drill the ice to ensure it meets the minimums required for safe travel.  Once the ice thickness has been established we begin staking the ice bridge.  We usually stake the edge of the ice bridge itself, the edge of the taper zone and the edge of the snow-free zone.  All stakes put in the ground have the associated road alignment stationing written on them as well.  This allows for the ice QA/QC and ice road construction crews to report accurate locations of drill holes.  We also establish vertical PI pole measuring stations so the construction crews can monitor their lifts and keep them within project tolerances.

Ice Road & Bridge QA / QC

Drilling rigs are critical to North Slope Operations. Knowing that they will travel safely and effectively to their intended destinations is crucial, especially on ice. Frontier Surveys specializes in Quality Assurance (QA) & Quality Control (QC) throughout the entire ice road construction process. From the beginning we start by monitoring ground temperatures by utilizing remote thermistor sites as well a testing actual ground temperature on location.  Once ice road/bridge construction begins we are on site to ensure that the ice road has a minimum of 6” ice cover above tundra per DNR permit specifications.  We are determined to provide the most accurate results whether by ice profiling with augers or utilizing more advanced technologies such as Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR).

Ice Bridges are sometimes used to transport equipement and supplies across frozen rivers on the North Slope.  Knowing that your ice bridge is designed and built to industry standards is a must.  Proper ice bridge construction using flooded river water, ice chips or imported fresh water is key to building a solid, constructionally sound ice bridge.  After construction is finished, monitoring begins.  Ice bridge profiling with ice augers helps monitor the sub-ice bridge scouring and erosion from free flowing river water. You can count on Frontier Surveys for all of your ice bridge monitoring, design & QA/QC needs.

Well Conductor Stakeout & Install

Usually this process begins with a conductor location coordinate provided by the geologists for the ideal conductor surface location.  We then convert the coordinate into NAD83 or NAD27 for field stake-out.  Once the coordinate is converted and the drill site pad is brought up to finish grade, we stake the center conductor location with reference points in all directions for quick reference by the conductor installation crew.  Once the conductor and associated components are installed, Frontier Surveys as-builts it’s location for one last verification before the rig is brought into place.