Science & Technology: Call for Oil & Gas/Geothermal Cooperation

Geothermal Making Breakthroughs Using Oil Drilling Tech (Oil Price.com)

Oil and gas companies have earned a bad reputation through their drilling practices, yet their advances in drilling technology that have made possible the extraction of oil and gas from super-deep wells have also been highly beneficial to the exploitation of renewable resources, and more specifically geothermal energy.

The high temperature environment and the highly fractured rock in geothermal regions make drilling and completion very complex, most notably in the selection of tubular, downhole tools, and cementing materials. Geothermal drilling is still a small fraction of the activity of oil and gas companies, so much of the possible developments in advanced drilling and completion technologies for geothermal applications remain only a potential.

The approach of exploiting geothermal energy is very similar to that employed by oil and gas companies, which have been drilling wells of depths greater than 10 km. Such geothermal projects represent an opportunity for oil and gas companies to advance in technological development and diversify their revenue sources.

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