Wednesday, 29 September

Three more GDP grants finalised

Torrens Energy (TEY) and Green Rock Energy (GRK) signed $7 million Geothermal Drilling Program (GDP)Funding agreements with the Commonwealth Government last week. Another recipient company Greenearth Energy had done the same earlier in the month.

The GDP is a Commonwealth competitive grants program announced in 2008 providing $50 million to seven eligible applicants in the form of dollar for dollar grant funding to undertake drilling of geothermal proof-of-concept projects in Australia. In the first round, only two projects were funded: Petratherm - Paralana and Panax - Penola. Torrens, Green Rock and Greenearth projects are funded in the second GDP round. The other two recipients funded in the second round were Geodynamics Bulga Project and GRE Geothermal WA1 in Perth metro area. No announcements have been made yet by these two companies about the progress with their GDP grants. The GDP program announcement stipulates that the projects funded in the second round need to be completed by 31 December 2014.

Managing Director Richard Beresford said that the company is planning to drill two wells at The University of Western Australia’s Crawley Campus to prove that commercial quantities of geothermal energy can be delivered from depths of about 3,000 metres at temperatures high enough to drive an absorption chiller which would supply a significant part of the Campus’ chilled water requirements. The GDP requires matching funds. Green Rock is hoping to bring such fnds from a variety of sources, including WA Government’s Low Emissions Energy Development Fund (not secured yet but an announcement is expected shortly) and a number of potential joint venture partners.

Torrens is expecting to start drilling its first deep well win parachilna, Elendil 1, in 2011. Based on shallow well data and modelling work conducted in 2008, Torrens Energy is expecting temperatures as high as 240ºC at 4,500m. The matching funds for the project will come from the company shareholders according to the company announcement.

Greenearth will use the GDP funding to prove the potential at the hot sedimentary aquifer (HSA) geothermal energy project located in the Wensleydale - Gherang area northwest of Anglesea, Victoria. The company anouncement states that Greenearth Energy is also developing a large-scale geothermal power project near Geelong with Victorian State Government backing.

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