Lucrative Texan gas field measured with Leica Viva

26/08/2010

The natural resource-rich Barnett Shale gas field near Fort Worth, Texas, has been carefully surveyed in a joint project between Leica Geosystems and Geomaic Resources LLC.

Much of the field – which could potentially contain 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas – lies under the dense metropolitan area of Fort Worth, meaning that the surveying of the area was particularly complex, and any plans for extraction even more so.

The two firms worked with Frontier Surveying Company, a Fort Worth based firm specializing in gas field support, and used Leica's Viva precision metrology system. Viva tightly integrates GNSS receivers, total stations, laser scanners, data collectors, and other essential measurement technology through common system interfaces.

Due to the recent increases in natural gas prices, the difficult extraction of the gas from the Barnett Shale field is now economically viable. The start of any extraction work requires specific boundary surveys and apotential pipeline determination surveys.

Leica Viva has been able to deliver perfectly for both areas, according to Senior Project Manager Allen Peloquin.

"There are a lot of firms chasing this work," he said, "And we depend on outstanding technology for a competitive edge. Upgrading to Viva has definitely been a good move for us."

More than 90 Leica Geosystems receivers in Texas fed the calculations and measurements of the work, providing continuous network RTK corrections to all GPS brands on the market.