“Electricity in two years?”
by Bennette Roach
About three weeks ago we reported that as preparations for drilling a third geothermal well just south of the Week’s area above the Cork hill main road almost under St. George’s Hill, DFID local rep Martin Dawson reported, “Geothermal is going very well.”
He had said he was unable to give an exact date of the arrival of the drilling rig, but I knew the rig “is on its way across the Pacific having encountered some “bad weather around the Philippines area.” “I anticipate that the drilling rig group will arrive on the island sometime mid-August around about the 20th,” he said.
This week according to a ZJB report, they had been speaking with the geothermal project manager was trying to put an end to speculations as to the parameters as to the third geothermal well at the bottom of St. Georges Hill.
Once again there seems to be some concerns about the “drilling direction” of the well. Geologist Nicholas Reas talks about the drilling direction. He says, it is intended to be vertical, but he also makes a case for changing the direction during the drilling process.
“There is a possibility to count on…changing the direction of the well while you are drilling. But in this particular case from my point of view there is no real need to give the drill any specific direction when you don’t know the pattern of what you’re drilling.”
He says when you to give a well a specific direction is when you have a very good knowledge of your reservoir and you know that taking some specific direction, you will enhance the production or whatever.
Reas points out that the well is also an exploratory well and, “we still have to learn a little bit more before giving the well a specific direction.”
He went on to speak about the likelihood of the well, being a reinjection well, saying that MON3 as this is termed, may also be a production well. “… Mon3 could eventually be a reinjection well if we realize that we are drilling in a retired zone or it could be that Mon3 turns out to be a very good production well inside the up flow zone and then we will have Mon1 and Mon2 probably conceptualize in the retired zone and good for the reinjection.”
Prior to the Geologist project manager had confirmed that the drill rig was soon to arrive and ventured to say that he is doing everything he could to help Montserrat realize its ultimate aim of being able to provide cheaper electricity to its people.
The Geologist informs that he has a geology background and that he was contracted for two years to coordinate all activities on the geothermal project. He said he has worked on “geothermal projects like this on, in exploration phases, and I’m here for coordinating the whole project you guys are doing here, and to finally and hopefully finish with the power plant producing electricity.”
He also had reported that dredging had begun in preparation for the arrival of the drill rig at the Plymouth jetty. The dredging he said would take about nine working days. The best news he could give perhaps, was saying that electricity would probably be forthcoming in, “say fourteen to sixteen months after MON3 is drilled.”
