Winter is Here. Harsh Conditions Won’t Suspend Road Construction

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Transporting construction and drilling equipment with heavy wheel loads is extremely challenging across soft ground, dense muskeg, or oversaturated clays—conditions typical of the oil sands regions of Athabasca, Peace River, and Cold Lake. These challenges are compounded by extreme winter weather and frozen ground. To make matters even more difficult, limited road-building resources make constructing roads and pads nearly impossible in these environments.

The good news is, we have a durable and proven solution: the GEOWEB® Geocells—a reliable, all-weather road system.

A Better Way to Build with Limited Resources

Alberta’s oil sands operators have capitalized on the GEOWEB system’s cellular confinement technology to help overcome the challenges they faced when building access roads and drill pads in one of Canada’s harshest regions.

The GEOWEB roadway system is the preferred solution for Western Canada oil producers as it significantly reduces the required cross-section—often replacing a 1.5m section with a 200mm section—and allows reject screenings from crushing operations (coarse sand <5 mm) to be used as infill. This approach not only saves on the importing of expensive aggregate but is one of the best approaches to build roads into remote areas with limited available resources.

How does the GEOWEB 3D System Work?

Ultrasonically welded strips of high-density polyethylene (HDPE)—the only material with over 40 years of proven, in-ground geocell success—form the 3D GEOWEB honeycomb-like structure. Through the confinement of infill, the strong cellular network provides cohesion and additional strength to non-cohesive soils. Once filled, the system creates a stable driving surface and can support heavy, repeated loading.

Each 25 m² GEOWEB section (2.6m x 9.6m) is quick and easy to install by local crews—simply expand and anchor using temporary stakes, infill using dump trucks, and spread the infill using dozers and/or skid steers. The ATRA® Key section connection device makes installation quick and efficient, and with expert oversight of Canadian distributor Layfield Group, project completion rates can be significantly improved.