gdy 105 million jv origin energy, page-87

Thought I would post this incase Tawyport starts repeating

Geothermal IPOs heat up


Monday, November 05, 2007

TWO Victorian geothermal energy start-ups - Hot Rock Ltd and Greenearth Energy - plan to enter public life before the end of the year.



Lakes' Trifon-2 well, which flowed 90° C water in 2004

Hot Rock Ltd closed its initial public share offering last week and aims to list on the Australian Securities Exchange later this month under the code HRL.

The public issue of 16 million shares at 25c each was oversubscribed. It adds to 45.2 million shares on issue before the IPO and was accompanied by 3 million options. The shares are expected to be listed on the ASX later this month

Confusingly, Hot Rock Limited is not what is generally referred to as a 'hot rocks' company.

It is not exploring for hot dry rocks and planning to develop and engineered reservoir; rather, the company is aiming at conventional, wet rock, geothermal targets.

Hot Rock's four tenements cover 18,294 square kilometres of the Victorian sector of the Otway Basin.

Previous drilling in the Otway Basin to depths of up to 3500m has recorded temperatures of up to 143C, according to managing director Dr Mark Elliott.

"Temperature of more than 120 degrees is commercially viable, depending on productiveness and depth of well and production pumping requirements," he said.

According to Elliott, 24 countries generate power from geothermal resources but the future potential is enormous, as it is estimated only some 10% of the global reserve of geothermal energy has yet been developed.

"We are now compiling and re-interpreting the extensive geological and geophysical data that exists on our areas, and we plan magneto-telluric geophysical soundings, traditional seismic, aeromagnetic and gravity surveys to help identify and define drilling targets," he said.

Unlike many Australian geothermal operators, Hot Rock Limited's acreage is close to power markets and the resource can be easily developed, Elliott said.

"Our tenements, surrounding the centres of Portland, Hamilton Warrnambool and Colac, are close to transmission lines, population centres, infrastructure and industry," he said.

"Hot wet rock resources can be developed at lower cost than hot dry rock, as they contain reservoir water, are naturally permeable, and are exploitable at shallower drilling depths."

Dr Elliott and non-executive chairman, Norm Zillman, have considerable experience in energy exploration and development.

The company is supported by Sinclair Knight Merz and two geothermal experts, Professor Jim Cull AM (PhD) and Dr Kerry Burns BSc (Hons) PhD.

Greenearth Energy

Meanwhile, Greenearth Energy - an affiliate of Lakes Oil and Victoria Petroleum - on Friday lodged a prospectus to raise up to $15 million in an initial public offering.

Lakes and VicPet shareholders will receive priority for $8 million of these shares.

Greenearth Energy holds three geothermal exploration permits in Victoria, based on heat data encountered by Lakes in the region.

Two of its permits cover the Latrobe Valley/Gippsland region, with the third covering the western part of Melbourne and Geelong.

Since that time, $1.8 million has been spent gathering heat information, including data from several of Lakes' existing wells and the recently-drilled Hazelwood-1 and Boola Boola-2 wells.

Most recently, Greenearth signed a memorandum of understanding with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology to develop new technologies for exploiting geothermal resources.



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KUTh kicks-off Tassie geothermal drilling

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

GEOTHERMAL hopeful KUTh Energy has started a systematic shallow drilling program across one of its tenements in eastern Tasmania.



Dr Roger Lewis (principal consultant) and Dr John Bishop (Chairman) inspect part of the insulating cover sequence in eastern Tasmania.


Map showing KUTh's eastern Tasmanian tenements

The company told the market yesterday that the campaign would refine surface thermal anomalies, and allow deeper drilling targets to be identified through the modeling of deep thermal characteristics.

Spudded this week, the Tooms-1 shallow thermal well is in the Tooms Lake area of SEL26-2005.

Across and adjacent to the SEL are boreholes with anomalous heat flow and thermal gradient data, KUTh said.

The program is designed to follow up these high heat flow values on a well spacing of 20 square kilometres.

Each well, which has a planned total depth of 300m, will be cased with PVC and allowed to thermally equilibrate, after which a thermal probe will be inserted to take a reading.

Core of the various rock types intersected will be sampled and a database of thermal conductivities established.

KUTh said this database would be the first of its type relevant to Tasmanian geology.

"As the whole 13,000-square kilometre area of the SEL is considered prospective, the program will span the entire area, but the initial part of the program will take account of the recent gravity survey, which outlined an additional prospective area in the central eastern portion of the lease," the company said.

"When completed and analysed, the data collected will allow modelling of the thermal characteristics of the basement, and targets established for follow-up deep drilling."



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A hot start for geothermal junior


Thursday, November 15, 2007

GEOTHERMAL explorer Hot Rock Limited debuted on the ASX yesterday at a premium to its 25c issue price.



A New Zealand geothermal project

Trading under the code HRL, Hot Rock closed at 28.5c yesterday and opened at 29.5c this morning. The company's initial public offering of 16 million shares was oversubscribed. It has 61.2 million shares and 3 million options.

For now, Hot Rock is focusing on conventional geothermal energy from underground aquifers rather than the hot, dry fractured rock system that relies on engineered reservoirs.

The company plans to begin its exploration program next month with a three-week trial magnetotelluric survey over two of its four Otway Basin, Victoria geothermal exploration licences, according to managing director Mark Elliott.

"This is a relatively standard geophysical technique used to outline high temperature geothermal systems but not previously used in Australia to date," Elliott said.

Surface sensors will be used to penetrate up to 4km into the Crayfish Subgroup geological formations to help determine where the hottest water and thickest aquifers are.

"We will trial the MT technology along known seismic lines near previously drilled petroleum exploration wells that recorded high geothermal gradients for maximum control on the MT data," Elliott said.

"If successful, we intend to use this as our main exploration method to help define drill targets."

Geothermal power is well established in New Zealand, Iceland and parts of the US and the Philippines, but almost unknown in Australia.