Regina 鈥� Drilling on the second Deep Earth Energy Production (DEEP) geothermal power production well was expected to begin in late October, after press time.
DEEP president and CEO Kirsten Marcia was one of the presenters at the SIMSA Oil and Gas Supply Chain Forum on Oct. 3. She was the final speaker of the day, and when the speed networking session took place immediately afterward, she had the longest line of people interested in speaking to her.
DEEP is working on developing baseload electrical power generation, with geothermal heat derived for very deep wells south of Torquay.
Marcia said, 鈥淣ow that we鈥檝e done our flow and build up test, we are back in the field. The rig is moving on Monday (Oct. 7). We are using Panther Drilling of Weyburn. The first thing we are doing is recompleting the first well into an injection well, and then taking all that fluid on the site and injecting it down into the injection well. We鈥檒l be monitoring it with gauges to see how well it responds to reinjection.
鈥淎s soon as that鈥檚 complete, we鈥檙e drilling our second well.鈥�
This will not be a typical horizontal well like most directional wells in the region. In fact, it鈥檚 not a horizontal well at all. Those are drilled straight down, then turning horizontally and running essentially flat for hundreds of meters.
The second DEEP well will be drilled adjacent to the first hole, but instead of going straight down all the way like the first, it will be directionally drilled at an angle to the southwest, kicking off the build section around 1,300 metres. The toe of the well will end up about 1,500 metres laterally away from the bottom of the initial well. The resulting configuration of the two wells will approximate the shape of a right triangle, with the base of the triangle 小蓝视频 the Deadwood and Precambrian formations where the system will draw very hot brine from, and then reinject it into via the first well. The second well will be the hypotenuse of that triangle.
The initial well will become an injector, and the new, second well will be the producer. It will be larger in diameter than the first well.
Once complete, a 60-day production and injection test will commence on the project鈥檚 first combined geothermal well pair. This is required for the final engineering design.
Marcia said, 鈥淭hings can move quite quickly at this standpoint. We need that second well in place so we can do the long term loop and refine our engineering and construction plans. But after that, things can move very quickly.聽 The longest lead item isI ordering the Organic Rankine cCcle power generating facility, which can take 12 to 16 months. The rest is infill drilling.鈥�
鈥淎t this point, we believe we can have power to the grid at the end of 2021 or the beginning of 2022.鈥�
Marcia spoke of the recent flow test. She explained that the brine from the initial well is 10 times saltier than sea water. 鈥淭he joke is this is the water you can actually walk on,鈥� she said.
Understanding how that brine behaves when you cool it, at what point the salts precipitate out when cooled, what are those salts, what kind of bacteria is in this old, ancient fluid are all pertinent questions. To that end they had a water expert working on the science end of the project.
Those salts may be a key side benefit, as she alluded to the possibility of mineral extraction.
鈥淲e鈥檝e also acquired the mineral rights. We know from our brines that we have a lot of interesting elements that end in 鈥榠um.鈥� We鈥檙e looking at the potential processing to acquire those to this project.鈥�
鈥淲e鈥檙e looking at additional revenue streams and opportunities to maximize the heat that we鈥檙e going to recover out of the ground,鈥� Marcia said. After the brine had gone through the plant, it will still be 65 C. 鈥淲e鈥檙e looking at what we can do with 65 C heat. The most obvious one is greenhouses. If we take half of our fluid and direct it to a greenhouse, we could heat a 50-acre greenhouse. That鈥檚 massive.
鈥淲e would never be the greenhouse developers ourselves. Whether its kale or marijuana or tomatoes, it doesn鈥檛 matter to us.
She added the possibility of using local flare gas to power some of the parasitic loads like running the pumps. 鈥淚f we can take flare gas off the market and use it to power a renewable energy project, that鈥檚 pretty cool,鈥� she said.
The first facility is planned to be five megawatts, net, but the future is hopefully much larger. 鈥淭hink of a wind farm, 100, 200 megawatts. That鈥檚 our vision for this first field in Saskatchewan. We believe its not overselling it, but a reasonable starting point,鈥� Marcia said.
Depending on drilling spacing, she noted they can add additional wells to scale up. 鈥淣ot only is it repeatable, but it鈥檚 scalable,鈥� she said.
Marcia noted they have received not only private funding, but also from the federal government via Natural Resources Canada under the Emerging Renewable Power Program. The first project was a tidal power project for the Bay of Fundy, and the second project is DEEP鈥檚.
There鈥檚 also been funding from the province.
After her presentation, Marcia expressed gratitude for local community support and enthusiasm, saying, 鈥淚t鈥檚 one of the things we don鈥檛 see in other places of the world. We sometimes don鈥檛 realize how important that support is for any type of resource project, going forward.鈥�
