News

November 15, 2006

Petratherm Is Looking To Generate Power From Heat At Relatively Shallow Depths

By Rue Swabey

PetraTherm was formed in 2003 when it was spun out of Minotaur Resources, a mining exploration company. It floated on the Australian Stock Exchange in July 2004 at A20cents and raised A$4 million. Today it trades at A36cents giving it a market capitalisation of around A$12.6million . Recent news on the sector has been dominated by its Australian competitor, Geodynamics which has run into problems drilling its Habanero 2 well at depths of 4.5kms. PetraTherm hopes to avoid such problems by operating at shallower depths of 3.6kms.

PetraTherm’s model differs from Geodynamics in several ways. Its exploration model aims to identify shallow (at depths of 3.6kms or less) geothermal resources close to energy infrastructure and markets.  It is developing sites in the mining provinces of South Australia which have excellent geothermal resources and potential off-grid customers. PetraTherm uses magneto-telluric ground surveys to map the surface of the potential granite heat source at depth. This technique, which was...