News

Panax Geothermal/ Petratherm JV receiving first payments of drilling grants

Alexander Richter 7 Aug 2009

Panax Geothermal Limited and the Petratherm JV at Paralana have received the first of two milestone payments from the drilling grants awarded to both projects by the Australian Geothermal Drilling program.

Panax Geothermal Limited, as well Petratherm (ASX:PTR) and JV partners Beach Petroleum (ASX:BPT) and TRUenergy Geothermal have received the first two milestone payments for Salamander-1/ Penola (Panax) and the Paralana Project (Petratherm) relating to its Geothermal Drilling Program (“GDP”) grant from the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism.

The $7m Geothermal Drilling Program grant will assist in funding the two-well HEWI proof of concept work.

The grants were awarded in April 2009 to Panax for drilling Salamander-1 near Penola and the two well HEWI proof of concept work of Petratherm at Paralana.

The payment this week was for AU$2.45m. An additional AU$1.75m is expected to be awarded in late September or early October.

The Federal Government announced the AU$50m program in August last year to help begin making geothermal technology viable for baseload energy production.

Source: Announcement for Panax (The Border Watch), Announcement for Petratherm JV (iStockAnalyst)