Research and evaluation on the geothermal potential of Vietnam has been systematically carried out since 1995. The Vietnamese government has paid a great deal of attention to this area and financed the Industry Ministry to conduct projects involved in the exploration and assessment of the geothermal potential in middle-southern Vietnam from 1994- 1996 and in the middle-northern Vietnam from 1997-1998. The exploration and evaluation of geothermal potential for the rest of northern Vietnam will be implemented from 1999- 2000. In the preceding years, The Geological and Mineral Department of Vietnam has studied the geological structures of hot water resources which may be utilized for power generation in coming years. Currently, the Vietnam government has agreed that the international geothermal company ORMAT from the USA and the Industry Ministry will complete procedures to carry out project surveys for the assessment and utilization of geothermal energy for power generation (approximately 50MW) of groups of hot water resources in the south of Vietnam. The hot water resources at HoiVan, with a temperature of 83oC at the surface will be produced for power generation in the this project., The Geological and Mineral Department of Vietnam has made a geological exploration and assessment of the geothermal potential at HoiVan using geological, hydrological, geochemical and especially geophysical methods. The most important and detailed of which are resistivity, magnetics, radio-active, gravity and temperature measurements at the 1.5-2m depth. The results of these surveys show that a deep fault system exists in this area and hot water concentrates in this system. Based upon the geophysical results, three holes (HV1, HV2 and HV3) were drilled. These discharge hot water at flow rates from 2.7 ñ 5 l/s. Chemical geothermometery(Na, K) showed that the temperature of the deeper water was around 140oC. This paper presents the results of exploration methods involved in the assessment of the geothermal potential which would be utilized for power generation. The author expects that the presentation would provide readers who are interested in the geothermics in Vietnam with an interesting new source of information.

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