The Change
If oil and gas operators seeking to drill in Weld County submit a permit today, a Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) Form 2A is required. February 1, 2017 marks the final day that operators can submit a COGCC Form 2A without having to go through the new Weld County Weld Oil and Gas Location Assessment process (WOGLA). Beginning February 2, 2017, an approved WOGLA will be required for construction of oil and gas facilities in Weld County, in addition to the COGCC approved Form 2A.
What does this mean for oil and gas operators?
One of the major changes that WOGLA presents to operators is the Location Drawing exhibit. The COGCC Location Drawing requires all visible improvements be depicted within 500 feet; whereas the WOGLA Location Drawing requires all visible improvements be depicted within 1,000 feet. This presents a challenge with the ability to receive permission from surrounding land owners allowing access onto their property for survey purposes. Weld County states that if permission cannot be obtained, then an on-the-ground estimation can be performed, as well as utilization of GIS images from Google Earth or a public domain. Both of those options present the possibility of a high degree of inaccuracy due to lack of visibility or lack of current and updated GIS imagery.
A major requirement of the new WOGLA process is the WOGLA notice, which is sent to all Building Unit owners, the Weld County Local Government Designee (LGD), and proximate LGDs within 1,000 feet of the Oil and Gas Location. Required with this notice is a Notification Zone Drawing exhibit (NZD) that shows every building unit within 1,000 feet of the proposed site. If either the on-the-ground survey estimation or GIS imagery fails to include a building unit on the NZD, then that may lead to the operator failing to provide notice to all Building Unit owners. This could result in repercussions that could be costly in regard to time, money, and industry position.
A Proposed Solution
Ascent Geomatics Solutions has regulatory expertise in this area, and our team is experienced in working with innovative technology to provide the most efficient and reliable solution to this challenge. Our Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), commonly referred to as drones, can safely collect data in minutes, such as the additional 500 feet of visible improvements required, and can do so at any stage of the project.
We will continue to provide updates as we learn more about this new regulatory initiative. Please also join us on February 2nd for our first webinar on the topic of WOGLA.
Bio coming soon.
Hold for Lisa McCool bio.
Hold for Christie Petersen bio.
Scott Bass manages all Colorado survey crews at Ascent. He began at Ascent in 2019, and has a variety of skills, including GPS and Conventional field survey locations, AutoCAD Drafting, Revit drafting, Bid Package Preparations, Directing Operations, Business Development, Project Budgeting, and Deed Research/Analysis.
Hold for Matt Morris bio.
Chief People Officer
Ramsey joined the Ascent team in November of 2017 and is CFO, as well as overseeing the Accounting, Finance, IT and Operations functions of Ascent. Ramsey brings more than a decade of finance experience across multiple disciplines including budgeting, FP&A, M&A, controllership, pricing and contract negotiations and treasury management.
Founder
Chief Executive Officer
Regulatory Manager
Director of Innovation
Chief Operating Officer
Jerry has more than 30 years of technical and project management experience in the field of land surveying. As a retired Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) employee of 30 years, he brings his knowledge of CDOT procedure and techniques to the team. He is involved in the day to day process, procedures, and workflows of the infrastructure related projects, project phase and tasks, and verifying the delivery of survey data for the infrastructure projects. Primary functions include the QA/QC of daily and final survey deliverables, project management, researching Right of Way records, ensuring Federal, State, County, and Local requirements are met, and the signing and sealing of survey related documents for recording. Jerry has been a licensed Professional Land Surveyor in Colorado since 1994.
Program Manager
Bob has more than 40 years of experience in the surveying and mapping professions. He has worked in the capacity of owner, survey manager, office manager, and project manager for surveying, construction and engineering firms. As a Professional Land Surveyor, he has experience working on survey projects involving Primary control layout, construction, boundary, mining, oil-gas, topographic, and design. He has provided these services to a variety of clients including CDOT, Arapahoe County, Jefferson County, Clear Creek County, City and County of Denver, private engineering firms including CH2M Hill, Carter Burgess, J.F. Sato, Merrick & Co, Washington Group, Nolte Associate, and construction companies including Johnson Brothers Construction, Ames Construction Co., Sema Construction Co., KiewitWestern Construction, Kelly Construction and Lawrence Construction Co. Bob has been a Licensed Professional Land Surveyor since 1983, and holds an Associate Degree in Surveying from Red Rocks Community College.
Productions Manager
Engineering Manager
GIS Manager
Senior Field Coordinator/Crew Chief
Colorado
Data Processing Specialist
Controller
Upstream oil & gas operators have one simple goal: find and drill hydrocarbons. To do this, operators must navigate the regulatory gauntlet to receive their necessary permits. Without the proper expertise and experience, operators can lose valuable time and possibly even lose the location itself to another operator.
Extended Text for Popup: The ability to manage all your assets is critical to running an efficient organization. Having the ability to view floodplain, wildlife and/or utility lines can help operators better plan their sites for Surface Use Agreements (SUA).
Viewing up-to-date aerial imagery can help save companies thousands of dollars by avoiding previously unforeseen challenges at the site location.
Most oil & gas operators will create as-built drawings for their well pads, pipelines, facilities and any other construction related projects. ASCENT has completed thousands of as-built surveys and drawings for our clients. Our extensive experience has taught us the most efficient and cost effective ways to create these as-built deliverables.
When companies are looking to design, or modify a facility, there is no reason not to use LiDAR technology. LiDAR provides design-grade accuracy with 3D modeling to see how the facility will look after construction.
Pipeline projects can cost millions of dollars. Missing the project timelines can cost midstream operators even more money. That is why planning on the front-end of the project is so important.
Longer pipeline corridors can take a significant amount of time to create topographic surveys with traditional methods. With aerial LiDAR, ASCENT can significantly reduce the time it takes to create these topographic surveys while providing a tremendous amount of useful data. This highly accurate pre-construction LiDAR data can then be married with highly accurate after-built LiDAR data to determine the precision of the planned and constructed pipeline.
