Confirmed by the DFID sponsored geothermal experts
by Bennette Roach
As promised by Dr. Kato Kimbugwe, a team of experts in Mike Allen together with Dr. Graham Ryan along with Paul Brophy, among others were due to be on island at the beginning of this week.
Kimbugwe speaking at the Governor’s press conference at the time revealed that the two geothermal wells which had been undergoing testing for some time, “Both wells are producing just about 1.5 megawatts…” that there would be a third well to be drilled.
Geothermal advisor to the Government of Montserrat Mike Allen and Consultant Paul Brophy met with the local Geothermal Steering Committee to provide an update on the process which has been achieved to date.
Following their meetings, at a press conference on Wednesday, with members of the steering committee and DFID’s Dr. Kimbugwe and Premier Meade in attendance, both Allen and Brophy with Kimbugwe and Premier Meade updated on the status and the way forward in the geothermal development project.
Mike Allen as the geothermal advisor to GoM and DFID advised that his first involvement here, “was to look at the economic and financial benefits of geothermal to justify and taking it through to the next phase of development.” He opened and reported as follows: “We have been continuing the long-term testing of the wells, the second well is about to be close back in again after more than thirty days of testing, the result form the long terms testing have reconfirmed the initial results that we had and are looking very positive.
Paul Brophy
Mike Allen
“What has been agreed since we spoke last that we are going to drill a third well and the team has been on the island here, the team from EGS, from Capuano, from Oakland University and myself and we have been reviewing the location for the third well, that still has to be finally confirmed but the general agreement is to the target for that and the confirmation should be within the next ten day or so.
“In terms of the work for that we are going to obviously be needing, a drilling rig to be brought back to the island so a tender would be released for that shortly and we have some indication of interest from three international firms that are keen to come back and work on the island.
“Parallel with this work we are also doing work looking ahead at the power plant development. When we spoke last, we talked about that to some extent to integrate the geothermal into the existing system. We have a study on the way in terms of what we term group stability; we need to be able to see what portion of the generation on the island we can provide from Geothermal.”
Moving forward, he informed: “The transmission line to interconnect Brades and the geothermal power plant is being designed, that needs to be tendered and sold and at the moment it looks as though that would be completed late in November 2015. We are also at the moment in the midst of recruiting a project manager who will be based here full-time for the next twenty months or so to assist in pulling all of this together. As the project proceeds it’s obviously becoming more complicated not only within the multiple projects or the multiple contracts and they’re going to be manage for the Geothermal but also the integration into the diesel system.”
“Paul Brophy then reported on the up to date results of the drilling: “The general results showed that our estimates of what both wells are capable of producing…these are very interim results at this point in time we can’t confirm until the full analysis is done that will take about thirty days after the completion of the second well test. The reason for that is that we’re looking not only what individual wells will be able to produce but how the wells interact with each other and that’s a critical issue. That leads me to the very positive part of the flow test results that even though we haven’t quite completed Mon2 (well #2) tests, it appears that the geothermal resource at depth is very robust resource. We can say that because during the time that we have tested either both wells together or more specifically the individual wells we have seen no interference or no connection between the two wells.
“When you have drilled one, two or three wells and you flow one, you start seeing very minor nothing substantial pressure drops in the other one that’s just a function of starting to flow geothermal resource to the surface.
“We haven’t seen any of that interference and that shows and indicates to us that the resource has size and it has robustness of course. There is still allot more analysis to complete but we are very pleased to see that non-effect. If you want to put it is a very positive thing for the resource. But we feel like that resource temperatures are in the range of 230º to 240 º C which is a reasonably high temperature bearing in mind many resources can be developed below 200 degree Celsius, so we’ve got a good temperature ,we’ve got a reasonably good pressure and we’ve got no interference .”
Like he had earlier, supported by the experts, Dr. Kimbugwe informed that, “The next phase we’re looking at is on the plant. There is still a lot of work that needs to be undertaken to inform that particular process.
“The drilling of the third well provides information that will then help Mike Allen and his team in the design of the power plant itself. MUL, Peter and Dion are working with others who are looking at the design of the transmission line; that’s also a piece of work which is being undertaken, which is on the critical path in terms of how we coordinate all those things coming together in getting us some sort of commissioning date on geothermal which is in the second quarter of 2016. That is the target date we are looking at.”
Premier R T Meade
The premier interjected to caution that he would prefer to extend the date to cater for the unforeseen at this time.
Kimbugwe who is due to leave his post here with DFID shortly, added that he is working on the business case, together with Mike , “…in terms of feeding into that process, but we need all that information to provide us with some clarity on the funding scope and what is required.”
The conference which lasted just about an hour addressed many of the issues and concerns that have been raised on the way which included the question of the need for a third well, explained that it would most likely improve the output of the size of the wells which at the moment were each producing about 1.5 megawatts, which can be turned into three or more with a successful drill of the third well.
The location of the well was discussed along with the upstream from the production of geothermal which can be of significant interest to the economy.
Steering Committee report on geothermal development progress
