Slimhole Drilling for Geothermal Exploration
- Key words
- geothermal, exploration, slimhole, core drilling, testing, simulation
- Location
- Steamboat Hills, Nevada
- Conference
- World Geothermal Congress
- Year
- 1995
- Session
- SECTION 5 - Drilling and Completion Technology
- Language
- English
- Paper number
- 2-Finger
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Abstract
Sandia National Laboratories manages the US Department of Energy (DOE) program for slimhole drilling. The principal objective of this program is to expand proven geothermal reserves through increased exploration, made possible by lower-cost slimhole drilling. For this to be accepted as a valid exploration method, however, it is necessary to demonstrate that slimholes yield enough data to evaluate a geothermal reservoir, and that is the focus of Sandia's current research. This paper describes the drilling, logging, and flow testing of an exploratory slimhole in the Steamboat Hills geothermal field near Reno, Nevada, USA.
Copyright 1995, International Geothermal Association. Readers who download papers from this site should honour the copyright of the original authors, and may not copy or distribute the work further without the permission of the original publisher.