CEGE plans US$ 45 million projects in Hungary

Geothermal energy company CEGE, partly owned by Hungary’s MOL, plans to launch investment projects worth over HUF 10 billion (EUR 35 m/ US$ 45 m) at a number of locations, business daily Világgazdaság reported this week. The projects are still in a preparatory phase and will take years before the geothermal power plants start to operate.

Central European Geothermal Energy Ltd. (CEGE) was established at the end of July last year by Hungarian oil and gas group MOL, Iceland’s Enex and Green Rock Energy International of Australia. The aim of the new company is exploration, production and sales of geothermal energy, the construction of geothermal power plants and technologies for directly supplying thermal heat. The three founders have an equal one third share in the HUF 6 million share equity of CEGE.

CEGE plans to carry out investments worth over HUF 10 bn in the next four to five years, Világgazdaság said. The company would primarily produce electricity with geothermal energy. For that it will need to extract thermal water with temperatures of at least 110-120 degree Celsius from wells deeper than 2,000 metres.

There is no power plant of this kind in Hungary yet. CEGE Chief Executive Attila Kujbus said geological tests would need to be run for about three years before the building of the power plants could start. Geological-geophysical tests would take about a year and then another year would be devoted to seismic measures. Drilling could also take another year.

MOL hatched the idea in 2002 to build Central and Eastern Europe’s first geothermal power plant on the outskirts of Iklódbördöce, a small village in the county of Zala, using two abandoned hydrocarbon exploration wells. It planned to build a 2-5MW power plant at a cost of HUF 3-4 billion, but last year the company decided that the current electricity prices would not allow the plant to operate economically.

Source: portfolio.hu