Drilling is scheduled to start at the Salamander-1 well in September 2009, which is expected to be drilled to a depth of 4,000 m. The development of a national electricity grid-connected demonstration plant is expected to be complete by late 2011.
Panax Managing Director Dr Bertus de Graaf said that Salamander 1 will be the first well to test a conventional geothermal resource in Australia.
“Salamander 1 targets a hot sedimentary aquifer in sandstones of the Penola Trough,” he said.
“Unlike other geothermal systems, tests to establish an economic geothermal reservoir at the Penola Project can be carried out from a single well.”
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An independently reviewed pre-feasibility study has shown Panax’s Penola Project has the potential to generate cheap clean energy for Australia.
“The Penola Project has the scope to be of national significance in the quest to reduce carbon emissions through providing competitively priced, zero emission, base-load power,” Dr de Graaf said.
The rig, owned by United States-based Weatherford International Drilling, has been unloaded at Port Pirie in South Australia.
The Penola Project in Geothermal Exploration Licence 223 covers an area of 493 sq km and is part of Panax’s larger Limestone Coast Geothermal Project, which covers a total area of 3,127 sq km.
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