Evaluation of Small Diameter Coreholes for Reservoir Information

Abstract

Geothermal exploration has been highly successful to date in locating targets for drilling. However, the requirements for an economically successful geothermal well are both high flow rat,e and high temperature. Most geophysical and geochemical exploration methods have not been highly accurate in predicting the depth and actual temperature of a reservoir, nor have they been able to locate high permeability zones. The result is that most geothermal exploration is conducted by drilling core holes to better understand the heat flow in an area followed by drilling of production diameter exploration wells which can be flow tested to ascertain the permeability.