As per recent release, “Panax Geothermal (ASX: PAX) has announced mobilization of the Weatherford International Drilling Lightning Rig # 828 to the Salamander-1 drilling site at Penola in the south east of South Australia commenced over the weekend.

This morning, 11 loads had already left the site where the rig had been previously operating, bound for the Salamander-1 site, with the first loads to arrive tomorrow at Penola.

The merit of the Penola Project is verified by the occurrence of an independently assessed Measured Geothermal Resource estimated at 11,000 PJ of stored heat, sufficient for generating hundreds of MW’s of power.

The Penola Measured Geothermal Resource is one of only three in occurrence in Australia, two of which are owned by Panax.

The Salamander-1 well is a production well designed with the aim to convert part of the Geothermal Resources of the Penola Project into Geothermal Reserves, which in turn will form the basis for the development of a commercial, grid connected Demonstration Plant, a first for Australia.

It is unlikely that the drilling of the Salamander-1 well will suffer from major delays. Out of a total 28 petroleum wells drilled in the Penola Trough, 11 were deeper than 3,000m, averaging 3,240m. The average drilling time over these 11 wells to reach total depth equates to 28.3 days, whilst the deepest well in the Penola Trough reached TD of 3,499m in 24 days.

Salamander-1 is designed to reach a maximum depth of 4,000m, but may be pulled short following confirmation of the intersection of high porosity/permeability zones within the target reservoir.”

Source: Proactive Investors