|
Targeting sweet spot
GeoAlaska gets another geothermal prospecting permit on Augustine Island
Kay Cashman Petroleum News
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources' Division of Oil and Gas issued the final written finding of the director on Jan. 10 for the 2024 Augustine Island noncompetitive geothermal prospecting permit. Having found that issuing the permit is in the best interests of the state, the division will award the permit to GeoAlaska LLC to explore for geothermal resources on state-owned unencumbered lands within the prospecting permit area.
(See map in the online issue PDF)
The division issued a call for public comments and competing proposals on May 31 for 62,961 acres in 27 tracts on and around Augustine Island.
On July 3 the public comment period and call for competing proposals ended, and no competing proposals or comments were received. Therefore, the current GeoAlaska proposal is being offered as an exclusive noncompetitive prospecting permit for a period of 2 years with an annual rental rate of $3 per acre. This disposal is assigned to ADL 394174.
Augustine Island is in Kamishak Bay on the west side of Lower Cook Inlet, approximately 68 miles southwest of Homer and approximately 170 miles south-southwest of Anchorage.
The permit area consists of the southern portion of Augustine Island, containing about 7,205 acres of onshore portions of two tracts. The state owns the land within the permit area, and Augustine Island is entirely located within the Kenai Peninsula Borough.
GeoAlaska's CEO and majority owner Paul Craig told Petroleum News Jan. 12 that GeoAlaska and its partner company, Ignis Energy Inc. are "delighted with Director Derek Nottingham's final written finding."
The acreage surrounds GeoAlaska's existing permit, expanding and upgrading the company's position on Augustine Island.
2023 work During 2023, GeoAlaska collected magnetotelluric and gravity data at Augustine Island. "Analyses of these data has identified an attractive anomaly," a "sweet spot" that the company is planning to drill in 2024, Craig said.
GeoAlaska is working closely with Alaska Drilling & Completions to plan the 2024 temperature gradient drilling program. The plan is to core the exploration well to a depth sufficient to determine temperatures at various depths and to clarify whether a commercial hydrothermal system is present.
"Heat at depth is reasonable to assume given the proximity of the relatively shallow magma chamber below Mount Augustine. If a hydrothermal system is not discovered in the 2024 well, the temperature gradient data will allow GeoAlaska and Ignis to model shallow closed-loop enhanced recovery systems to generate power.
"We anticipate drilling into a hydrothermal system. But all is not lost if we drill into dry hot rock," Craig said.
GeoAlaska has benefited from the scientific studies recently published about Augustine Island and the monitoring of the island performed by the Alaska Volcano Observatory, AVO. Earthquakes cannot be predicted -- volcanic eruptions can. AVO's 24-7 notification system is critical to public safety on the ground at Augustine Island and in the air where thousands of passengers are transported along polar routes every day, Craig said.
Power to Railbelt Richard Calleri, CEO of Ignis Energy, told Petroleum News Jan. 12: "Ignis Energy is delighted to continue our partnership with GeoAlaska and extend our area of interest on Augustine Island. Our aim remains and has always been to provide affordable, clean and renewable base load geothermal energy to the Railbelt region of Alaska."
"Extending our area of interest on Augustine Island is in line with our overall strategy. The subsurface geophysical data that we have collected to date is very promising and we are now identifying additional targets to test within the greater Augustine permit," Calleri added.
Leases on Mount Spurr GeoAlaska also owns three state of Alaska geothermal leases on Mount Spurr, contiguous with leases owned by Cyrq Energy. Cyrq is a large geothermal power producer based in Salt Lake City. Cyrq was purchased by a subsidiary of Macquarie Infrastructure Partners in March 2021.
GeoAlaska's 2024 exploratory efforts are focused on Augustine Island. Nonetheless, Mount Spurr "lurks on the horizon as another world class geothermal prospect warranting exploration," Craig said.
You're never too old Ignis Energy partnered with GeoAlaska during March 2023. Ignis was founded about 3 years ago by Richard Calleri as a sister company to GeoLog -- an oil field service company started by the Calleri family more than 40 years ago with operations around the globe. Ignis has already begun expanding its geothermal presence internationally.
Craig, the majority owner of GeoAlaska, recently celebrated his 70th birthday and likes to tell people, "I'm getting too old to buy green bananas." On the heels of this quip, Craig points out, "Cornelius Vanderbilt made his first investment in the railroad business -- the source of the bulk of his estate -- when he was about the same age."
According to Craig, "GeoAlaska's goal is to provide green, geothermal baseload energy to the benefit of all Alaskans." Craig's view is that "In today's world, doing what we can to decarbonize the source of BTUs of energy that Alaskan's use each day makes good sense environmentally and commercially."
"At a personal level, I want to do my part to leave the earth a better place than I found it so that our children, our grandchildren, and generations to follow can benefit from our collective efforts. My dad frequently told me, 'Put more into your community than you take out and your community will take care of you.' I'm doing the best I can to follow his sage advice," Craig said.
| 