Geothermal exploration heats up in Tassie Thursday, 29 January...

Geothermal exploration heats up in Tassie

Thursday, 29 January 2009

KUTH Energy says the prospect of a major new Australian geothermal exploration province extending over 4800 square kilometres of central Tasmania is becoming ever more likely as new heat flow results deliver positive news.

Of the heat-flow results already received from its Tasmanian geothermal tenements, 11 have value ranges of 92-118 milliwatts (mW) per square metre.

The recently completed shallow drilling program currently has results from 21 of the 36 completed boreholes.

Eight new boreholes were completed in the December quarter with these results expected by the end of March.

KUTh Energy is also awaiting results from an interpretation of magneto-telluric (MT) data obtained in September-October from central and northern Tasmania.

In other company news, KUTh Energy has submitted applications for two geothermal exploration licences in Vanuatu.

The two tenement application areas, Takara and Teouma, are each 100 square kilometres in area, the maximum allowed under the nation’s legislation.

The Takara tenement contains a thermal area of about 2sq.km of shallow hot groundwater and springs.

The Teouma tenement is centred on a geological rift structure about 22km long called the Teouma Graben, with hot springs having chemical compositions indicating they came from a hydrothermal reservoir with temperatures of 200-210C.

KUTh Energy said should its applications be granted by the Vanuatu government, it will proceed to commercial discussions with electricity offtake users and start exploration drilling as quickly as possible.

At the end of the December quarter KUTh was holding $2.9 million in cash or deposits.