Another Milestone for SA Hot Rocks Projects
News Release
Hon Paul Holloway
Minister for Mineral Resources Development
Minister for Urban Development and Planning
Minister for Small Business
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
Minister for Mineral Resources Development Paul Holloway said an important milestone for South Australia’s hot rocks industry has been reached with today’s announcement of a deep drilling program for the Paralana Geothermal Energy JV Project.
Mr Holloway says Petratherm Ltd and its joint venture partners Beach Petroleum and TRUenergy have announced that they have secured a deep drilling rig for the Paralana project.
“The agreement with Weatherford Drilling International Australia to drill a deep well up to 4000m in February next year is tremendous news, especially given the difficulty to secure large rigs in the midst of the ongoing resources boom”, Mr Holloway says.
“The drilling of this deep well, with an additional well forecast to be drilled in early 2010 will enable the Paralana JV to accelerate their “proof of concept” stage of the project to enable them to supply power to Heathgate Resources’ Beverley uranium mine in the second half of 2010.
“It also heralds another important milestone whereby only one other company, Geodynamics Ltd, has taken the step of importing equipment necessary to progress to the stage of drilling of deep geothermal wells in Australia.”
Mr Holloway says South Australia is richly endowed with hot rocks and it is encouraging that another company has progressed to this important stage of tapping into the enormous potential of baseload renewable energy on offer in this State.
“Petratherm’s efforts in securing this deep drilling rig paves the way for other Australian geothermal energy developers to accelerate development across the geothermal sector, the majority of which I’m glad to report have licences in South Australia,” Mr Holloway says.
Mr Holloway noted another South Australian geothermal licence holder, Panax Geothermal Ltd has also announced plans to use the rig being brought into the country by Petratherm Ltd
To date, 24 companies have applied for 268 Geothermal Exploration Licences (GEL) areas in South Australia covering more than 126,205 square kilometres.
This compares with 85 licence applications for the rest of Australia, meaning about 75% of all licences in this country are located in South Australia.
While some of this work might not eventuate, the five-year work programs associated with these GELs exceed $709 million for the period 2002-2013.
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- Page Last Modified: September 4, 2008