Australian hot rock explorer Panax Geothermal (ASX:PAX) has revealed 41,000 petajoules of inferred resource at its Penola tenement in South Australia.

As stated by the company, 5% of the inferred resource could be classified as a measured resource sufficient to operate a 200 MW geothermal power plant for 30 years, subject to a full feasibility study. The company aims to have Australia’s first grid-connected geothermal power plant operationaly by 2011. The company is “quietly confident” of grant approval which would see drilling at Salamander 1 in the advanced Penola Project, part of the company’s limestone Coast geothermal project in SA, start by mid 2009.

The company would proceed, either with a grant or alternative funding, with production tests, with aims to make Salamander 1 part of a 5 to 10 MWe grid-connected, commercial geothermal power plant by 2011.

The Penola Project has excellent access to infrastructure, with the main National Electricity Market Management Company (NEMMCO) grid traversing the entirety of the project area, it said.

Panax has no debt and $8 million in cash to explore existing reservoirs containing hot geothermal fluids, which have less risks than hot fractured rock geothermal projects and a much shorter development time, it said.

Source: Meredith Booth for Adelaide Now