a comparison - weatherford 828 v gt3000

I've managed a bit of research this afternoon between other tasks which may or may not be of interest to CKK followers. I appreciate this post is somewhat long-winded but I believe it speaks volumes for the potential of the GT3000!

I did some rough extrapolation of potential revenue based on the company figures for the GT3000. As an example, with 15 rigs in service at a very conservative 50% utilization rate for each rig, this would generate over $320,000,000 annually.

It really wouldn't be difficult to see annual revenue approaching $1 billion in pretty quick time and this makes no allowance for revenue from the CLRS!

Furthermore, the money that to date has been made available AND spent on the drilling of the first two deep geothermal wells in South Australia by Petratherm and Panax is extremely encouraging to say the least ;)

Firstly I urge you to have a look at both the Petratherm & Panax Geothermal websites. I've pasted the web site addresses at the bottom of this post.

More specifically have a look at the announcements relating to Petratherm's Paralana JV with Beach Petroleum & TRU Energy. The announcement on the 30th of June 2009 regarding the commencement of drilling shows an aerial photo of the drilling site, it's like a small townsite! I imagine that it would be a very different photo of the CKK drill site ;)

This well took some five and a half months to drill to the completed depth of 3,725 metres! This is a very rough estimate of around 1 metre an hour!!!

In contrast Panax's Salamander-1 Well was spudded on the 31st of January 2010 after the Weathford Drilling International Rig #828 was mobilised from Petratherm's Paralana Well which you'll remember was completed on the 14th of December 2009.
The Salamander -1 Well was completed to a depth of 4,025 metres in just 45 days. This is regarded as a record drilling rate at an estimated 3.8 metres per hour, an obvious improvement but not 'a patch' on the meterage reported by the GT3000 at the Merredin testing site into hard rock.

Now I realise that the period covering the mobilisation of the rig falls around Christmas however bearing this mind we're talking a SIX WEEK period from when one well was completed & the next commenced.

Regarding funding for the drilling this is taken from Panax's 2010 Annual Report;

Panax raised $8 million through a combination of a $3.75 million share placement and a $4.25 million shareholder purchase plan. The Commonwealth?s $7 million Geothermal Drilling Program (?GDP?) grant which was allocated to Panax in April, 2009, is gratefully acknowledged.

Regarding funding for the drilling this is taken from Petratherm's 2010 Annual Report;

The Federal Government awarded Petratherm, and our joint
venture partners Beach Energy and TRUenergy Geothermal, a
$62.8 million Renewable Energy Demonstration Program (REDP)
grant. This comes on top of a $7 million Geothermal Drilling Program (GDP) grant awarded in the previous
financial year....Petratherm was encouraged by the ongoing support from its shareholder and brokers in raising the overall amount of $4.1 million to fund ongoing exploration and development of the Company?s projects.... A total of $20,210,789 was spent on Paralana.

Martin Ferguson, Federal Energy Minister, had this to say on the geothermal industry;

'The potential of the geothermal industry in Australia is truly staggering. Geoscience Australia estimates that if just one percent of Australia?s geothermal energy was extracted, it would equate to 26,000 times Australia?s total annual energy consumption.'

Another major adavantage of the powerful GT3000 rig is the diameter of the hole 6" - 8" from go to wo! Compare this to the WDI #828 which has the following stats;

0-300 metres = 18" dia
301-1250 metres = 13" dia
1251-2250 metres = 9" dia
2250-4000 metres = 7" dia

http://www.petratherm.com.au/_webapp_117685/Paralana

http://www.panaxgeothermal.com.au/news-media-asx.htm

Very happy holder

WC8