Drilling begins at Paralana Wednesday, 1 July 2009
PETRATHERM has kicked off its flagship Paralana joint venture project in South Australia with the spudding of the first of two deep geothermal wells.
A custom-made Weatherford drilling rig, the Lightning 2000hp rig, started drilling the Paralana-2 deep well on Tuesday.
The rig will drill the well 4 kilometres below the surface to create a deep injection well that, together with a second well, will establish an underground heat exchanger capable of carrying super-heated water between them by early 2010.
Partners Beach Petroleum and TRUenergy Geothermal will contribute $10 million and $6 million respectively, plus their equity share of project costs towards drilling and stimulating the two wells, and the water circulation tests.
Managing director Terry Kallis said the start of drilling at Paralana was an exciting step forward for the geothermal industry.
“This is a watershed day for Petratherm and our joint venture partners Beach Petroleum and TRUenergy Geothermal,” he said.
“It is a tremendous thrill to get to this point of the project particularly in light of our exploratory drilling results which indicate that Paralana has the highest recorded heat flow of all geothermal projects on mainland Australia.
“By 2011 we expect to be supplying geothermal energy on a commercial basis and by 2013 anticipate powering homes and businesses on a much larger scale.”
The well is expected to take 60 days to complete.
PTR Price at posting:
30.0¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Not Held
A personalised tool to help users track selected stocks. Delivering real-time notifications on price updates, announcements, and performance stats on each to help make informed investment decisions.
(20min delay)