Beginning in August and concluding in December of last year, after having drilled a two-leg multilateral well down to 18,000’ TVD and ~250°C, Eavor met its objectives, including achieving technical milestones which have drawn a follow-on investment of $10 million CAD from bp Ventures (“bp Ventures”).
These milestones were a combination of technical and operational measures and markers including depth, temperature, bit-life and rate of penetration in granite rock.
Several other objectives were reached including:
Isolation of the upper fractured permeable zone with casing to enable drilling of the multilaterals in the deeper low permeability basement rock, and subsequent sealing with Rock-Pipe™ technology.
Demonstrated insulated drill pipe (“IDP”) thermodynamic and mechanical performance with increased Rate of Penetration aided by shock cooling.
Successfully executed cased hole side-track in granite.
Demonstrated directional steering ability in hard rock with difficult intrusions and interbedded metamorphic formations.
Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (“H&P”) has also added to its 2021 equity investment, bringing its total to $10.2 million CAD, building on the companies’ ongoing collaborative efforts to further advance state of the art drilling technologies.
Mark Hodder, VP Drilling at Eavor, stated that: “The opportunity to confront this level of technical drilling challenges is rare. Our successes at Eavor-Deep™ are credited to the talents, commitment and passion of the combined teams of Eavor and H&P.”
Combined with the proof of concept demonstrated at the Derek Riddell Eavor-Lite™ Demonstration Facility near Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, Canada in 2019, the milestones reached at Eavor-Deep™ in 2022 have validated all the key elements required to construct and operate commercial Eavor-Loops.
Matt Toews, CTO at Eavor, stated that: “The goals for our technology include not only reaching sub US$60 per megawatt-hour costs, but to enable widespread global scalability. The progress made in New Mexico is a critical step in this endeavor, and alongside our partners we will continue this process of innovation and iteration.”
About Eavor Technologies Inc.
Eavor (pronounced “Ever”) is a technology-based energy company led by a team dedicated to creating a clean, reliable, and affordable energy future on a global scale. Eavor’s solution (Eavor-Loop®) represents the world’s first truly scalable form of clean, dispatchable, baseload capable, and flexible power. Eavor achieves this by mitigating or eliminating many of the issues that have traditionally hindered geothermal energy. Eavor instead circulates a benign working fluid that is completely isolated from the environment in a closed-loop, through a massive subsurface radiator. This radiator simply collects heat from the natural geothermal gradient of the Earth via conduction. Eavor has been supported by equity investments made by several leading global energy producers, investors, developers, and venture capital funds including Vickers Venture Partners, bp Ventures, BDC Capital, Temasek, Chevron Technology Ventures, BHP Ventures, Helmerich & Payne, Precision Drilling and Chubu Electric Power. info@eavor.com
About bp Ventures:
bp ventures was set up more than 10 years ago as bp’s corporate venture capital arm. Since then bp has invested over $1bn in technology companies and is actively managing 40 investments today. bp ventures makes strategic equity investments in private, high growth businesses accelerating innovation across bp’s transition growth engines: renewables, EV charging, convenience, bioenergy, and hydrogen. bp.com/ventures
About Helmerich & Payne, Inc.:
Founded in 1920, Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (H&P) (NYSE: HP) is committed to delivering industry leading levels of drilling productivity and reliability. H&P strives to operate with the highest level of integrity, safety and innovation to deliver superior results for its customers and returns for shareholders. Through its subsidiaries, the Company designs, fabricates and operates high-performance drilling rigs in conventional and unconventional plays around the world. H&P also develops and implements advanced automation, directional drilling and survey management technologies. www.helmerichpayne.com
Reference material: NREL – Techno-economic performance of Eavor-Loop 2.0 – Eavor