www.panaxgeothermal.com.au
Panax Geothermal is a pure geothermal company with access to some of the worlds most promising geothermal assets. As climate change projections worsen, Panax Geothermal is well positioned to commercialise sustainable sources of base-load energy, powered from the Earth.
The long term vision of Panax is to become a major participant in the geothermal industry, both nationally and internationally. The scope of its geothermal interests will be broad, including both conventional geothermal resources (volcanic related) as well as enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) such as hot fractured rock (HFR) geothermal systems.
Panax Geothermal advises Salamander-1 well has spudded
Australian geothermal company Panax Geothermal (ASX: PAX) has reported the Salamander-1 well for the Penola Project, has spudded in the Limestone Coast area of South Australia, in the evening of Sunday 31 January 2010.
The eagerly awaited Salamander-1 is a pioneering well within the Australian geothermal sector. It is the first well to test a conventional geothermal resource, namely a Hot Sedimentary Aquifer (HSA).
Panax will release a weekly drilling progress to the market each Tuesday, starting on 9 February, 2010.
This style of Geothermal Resource relies on extracting existing hot water from an existing aquifer or HSA reservoir.
It has similarities to a water bore, but targeting geothermally heated hot water. Testing of the aquifer or reservoir can be carried out using only one well, again similar to tests used in water bores.
The advanced Penola Geothermal Project has an independently assessed “Measured Geothermal Resource”, of 11,000 PJ sufficient for generating 100’s of MW of zero emission power.
Panax's “measured resource” means that there is a higher degree of confidence regarding the geothermal temperature as well as regarding the quality of the target reservoir. This sets the Penola Project apart from all other known geothermal projects in Australia.
The Salamander-1 well is a production well designed with the aim to convert part of the “Measured Geothermal Resources” of the Penola Project into “Geothermal Reserves”. This would then be sufficient for a decision to commence the development of a 5.9 MW net plant, gridconnected, commercial Demonstration Plant, within three months of completion of drilling.
Panax received a $7 million grant from the first round of the Commonwealth’s Geothermal Drilling Programme towards the cost of this well.
Panax has stated that the drilling of the Salamander-1 well is unlikely to suffer from major delays, as were experienced by other geothermal projects in Australia.
