Geothermal Well Cost Analyses 2008

Abstract

Analyses of geothermal well construction costs are important to our understanding of future geothermal well construction including Engineered Geothermal Systems (EGS). Past work focused on analyses of Sandia well cost data and predicting future geothermal well costs using WellCost Lite. This work has provided a fundamental understanding of the factors that drive geothermal well costs. These include rig rates and the prices of steel, cement, rental items (e.g. blow out preventor), expendable items (e.g. drilling mud), services (e.g. well logging), etc. However there continues to be significant changes in fundamental cost drivers. Thus the question: “How do we make sense of what has happened in the last four years and are costs comparisons based on year 2004 dollars’ still valid?”