re: Ann: Origin advises intention to withdraw... Dealer, The...

re: Ann: Origin advises intention to withdraw...
Dealer, The chief issue is probably one of expectations being thwarted.

After the Big Bang of 2009 there was a deathly silence for a very long time. My impression was that ORG were not at all happy and that sharp debates were occurring. They may have been led on to believe that steam production was just around the corner so that their investment would bear fruit reasonably quickly. They may have also unjustifiably assumed certain things. As a result of the incident they asked many detailed questions to which GDY did not have answers. GDY had been following a drilling routine they thought was set by the oil industry expertise. The truth was that the oil industry did not in fact have great expertise in drilling deep wells through quartzite to get to the granite. Drill bit technology was also not as good as often claimed (but is somewhat better now). Operating temperatures were much higher than usual (good for geothermal energy production but not for controlled cement curing times around well casings). This reality forced GDY to rethink more precisely what it actually understood and which processes still had to be systematically researched. The apparent straight forward success of achieving HAB 1 must have been fortuitous and lulled everyone into a false sense of security.

I suspect there was much finger pointing on both sides. GDY would have been the more diplomatic in its expression since it desperately wanted to retain ORG in the JV, but in the end it was taking far too long for ORG and final energy production costs could still not even be estimated.
Hence I don’t think ORG was trying to be deliberately obstructive but were frustrated that its expectations were not realised. Their answer was to set staged goals for GDY as project manager to achieve, or else ORG would leave, and that happened.

I presume that ORG’s stake will simply erode over time as the project continues solely with GDY.

Juke