Optimizing Energy Exploration: How a Leading Energy Company Leverages Altalis Land Data

A leading North American Energy Producer with significant operations in Alberta, is actively addressing the complexities of responsible oil and gas development in the province. Their commitment to efficient and sustainable practices requires a deep understanding of Alberta's regulatory environment, diverse terrain, and complex land ownership structures.

To optimize key business activities such as acquiring mineral rights, planning pipelines, conducting seismic surveys, and minimizing environmental impact, the Energy Producer relies on a skilled geomatics team supported by Altalis' comprehensive land data products. This enduring partnership (over 20 years) demonstrates the value the company places on Altalis' expertise and its centralized data hub, specifically tailored to Alberta's land management intricacies.

Challenges

The Complexities of Land Management

The Energy Producer’s geomatics team, responsible for managing extensive land-related information, faced mounting challenges:

Increasing Workload

Each team member was required to handle a larger workload with fewer resources, placing pressure on the team to maintain efficiency and productivity.

Manual and Time-consuming Processes

Obtaining critical land ownership details and surface rights information involved cumbersome manual processes, including:

Conducting searches through government systems like Alberta's Geographic Land Information Management and Planning System (GLIMPS).
Manually interpreting and digitizing paper-based county maps to extract land ownership details and boundaries.
Accessing and interpreting individual Crown Field Tickets (CFTs) to gather specific information about Crown land parcels.

Data Integration Challenges

Integrating land data from various sources, including government systems and internal databases, was complex and time-consuming.

Maintaining Data Accuracy

Keeping land information up-to-date and ensuring accuracy across different projects and regions was an ongoing challenge.

Solutions

Altalis: Providing the Land Data Foundation for Success

Recognizing the need for efficient and reliable land data management, the company turned to Altalis for comprehensive geospatial solutions. Here's how those solutions were implemented within their projects:

ETM (Enhanced Title Mapping): This flagship product provides a digital, up-to-date representation of land ownership, including owner names, addresses, types of ownership, registration dates, and legal descriptions, in conjunction with DIDs+ (Dispositions, activities on public lands) and Cadastral (property boundaries derived from survey plans) information, effectively replacing time-consuming methods like manual map interpretation and "GLIMPS searches." These Altalis products enabled the company to do:

Land Acquisition: These data products streamline acquiring mineral rights and negotiating surface access agreements, which are important for exploration and production activities.
Pipeline Routing: Cadastral, DIDs+, and ETM data enable efficient mapping of pipeline routes while considering property boundaries, easements, and rights-of-way. This helps minimize land disturbances and ensure compliance with regulations.
Road Planning: When planning access roads, particularly in areas with a mix of private and Crown land, the company utilizes Cadastral data and DIDs+ (Disposition mapping) to understand land ownership and usage. This ensures efficient and responsible road construction with minimal impact on communities and the environment.

Base Features: This dataset is a foundational collection of geospatial data that provides a detailed and accurate representation of Alberta's landscape; this data enables the Energy Producer to do:

Seismic Design: The company also leverages LiDAR 7.5 DEM terrain data for its highly detailed topographic base that aids in understanding surface conditions. It acts as an excellent foundation on which more detailed geotechnical & seismic analyses are built.

API Access and FME Integration: Altalis provides API (Application Programming Interface) access and seamless integration with the company's FME (Feature Manipulation Engine by Safe Software) workflows, facilitating automated data ingestion and daily updates. This ensures that the Energy Producer's systems are populated with the most current information, which is critical for accurate planning and decision-making across all projects.

"The goal in oil and gas is to automate anything repetitive... Altalis data products help reduce the workload and free me up to work on higher value projects."

Geomatics Specialist

North American Energy Producer

Results

Efficiency Gains and Cost Savings with Altalis

The implementation of Altalis solutions resulted in significant improvements across the Energy Producer 's operations:

Increased Efficiency and Productivity: Automating land-related tasks using Altalis as a one-stop shop significantly reduced manual effort. This allows the geomatics team to handle the increased workload more effectively and focus on higher-value projects.
Improved Data Accuracy and Accessibility: Access to reliable and up-to-date land data through Altalis' platform ensures data accuracy and consistency across all projects and regions, facilitating informed decision-making and streamlined operational planning.
Enhanced Collaboration: Altalis data fosters better communication and sharing between the company's internal teams and external stakeholders.
Cost Savings: Optimized planning, reduced manual processes, and leveraging Atlalis APIs to update data have led to cost savings by minimizing potential disruptions and optimizing resource allocation.

About Altalis – www.altalis.com

Established in 1998, we have been the authoritative source of spatial data and imagery in Alberta for over 25 years.  We are the leading data management, maintenance, and distribution company in Alberta, and ensure the continued updating, re-engineering, storage, distribution, value-added redistribution, and general management of primary provincial mapping datasets. Our goal is to make mapping products more available, accessible, accurate, and affordable.  We are your trusted source of spatial data. 

Our state-of-the-art webstore, Altalis.com, is powered by AWS enabling reliable, fast and secure data deliveries. Customers can explore, view, and acquire spatial data products both paid and open data with the click of a button. We take pride in providing exceptional customer service and building long-term relationships with our clients. Our experienced customer service team is available to answer any questions you may have about finding the right data to meet your needs.