kuth confirmes new geothermal province

Results confirm and extend the high values reported previously from elsewhere in the KUTh tenement. Highlights incude:

· Surface heat flow values of between 83 and 97 milliWatts per square metre (mW/m2) returned from 3 drill holes to the NE and NW of the Storey’s Creek Granite. These are all regarded as highly anomalous and the 97 mW/m2 value is the highest yet recorded from the current geothermal programme;

· One additional hole, at Epping, has a heat flow of 92 mW/m2 towards the base of the hole, but only 62 mW/m2 towards the top, indicating heat removal, probably by water circulation in the middle part of the hole;

· The area of high heat flow outlined by KUTh’s drilling programme to-date is greater than 1,500 km2 and open on several sides.

Surface heat flow, the quantum of energy flowing out of the Earth’s surface per unit area, is a direct indicator of a buried heat source and the surface expression of enhanced geothermal energy potential. Hence high heat flow values are a critical element of hot rock geothermal projects.

These results, together with four earlier reported values of between 92 and 96 mW/m2, reinforce the conclusion that KUTh’s heat flow drilling programme is defining a new, significant geothermal province in Australia. The magnitude of the heat flows obtained is comparable with those reported from the Cooper Basin, currently Australia’s best known geothermal province.