Petratherm completes drilling campaign at Paralana

Alexander Richter 20 Dec 2009

According to a recent release, Australian “Petratherm says it has successfully completed a drilling campaign at Paralana, taking the hot-rocks project “almost half way” to proof-of-concept stage.

The company announced … that its Paralana 2 deep well, which is a joint venture project with Beach Energy and TRUenergy Geothermal, was successfully cased and cemented to a depth of 3725m.

Petratherm managing director Terry Kallis said the finished well represented a “major milestone” for the company.

“It is critical for us. We are only the second company in Australia to have drilled a test well at depth,” he said.

“It is a major milestone for us and it gets us a little less than half way towards proving concept.”

The company said the drilling campaign achieved its planned safety and environmental targets, and had exceeded the targeted minimum depth of 3600m.

In another positive for the project, Mr Kallis said no “nasty” gases, such as hydrogen sulfide or carbon dioxide, had been encountered during the drilling campaign.

The next step for the company is to take temperature measurements from the well, which will occur in mid to late January, before a fracture stimulation program in the first quarter of the year.
“Once we have done that, then a lot of the risk in what we are doing is taken out of the company and the project,” Mr Kallis said.

He said the company was aiming for proof of concept to be achieved within 12 months. The completion of drilling at Paralana frees-up the Weatherford International rig for drilling at Panax’s project in the South East.

Panax yesterday said the rig would begin arriving on site at Penola soon.”

Source: Adelaide Now