Oilfield service provider Halliburton has entered into an exclusive agreement to carry out drilling and well intervention services at UK-based geothermal developer CeraPhi Energy’s existing projects.
Halliburton will support CeraPhi’s work of repurposing end-of-life oil and gas wells in the UK and the US for heat extraction, with the first such project expected to start in the fourth quarter of this year.
The work will involve well engineering and support to the development and application of CeraPhiWell, CeraPhi Energy’s patented technology.
CeraPhiWell is a closed loop downhole heat exchanger that draws subsurface heat. The company said it can have different applications for scalable baseload energy, including climatised agriculture, heating systems and industrial processes, desalination and water treatment, power generation and green hydrogen.
Ceraphi Energy will apply the technology to abandoned or underperforming oil and gas wells, with the aim of retrofitting the sites to extract subsurface heat.
Know-how
The company see cooperation with the oil and gas sector as crucial to access the know-how that would allow scaling of its technology.
“Scaling this opportunity is key to reducing cost and making geothermal energy the baseload energy of choice,” said CeraPhi chief executive Karl Farrow. “The oil and gas service sector is key to this transition.”
On the agreement with Halliburton, he added: “This collaboration is a natural fit and could be game-changing for geothermal‘s role in the energy transition and have a revolutionary impact on onshore oil and gas sector’s late life and ‘orphaned’ wells.”
Other industry operators have been exploring geothermal potential by retrofitting wells.
In June, India’s Cairn Oil & Gas signed a deal with US oilfield services giant Baker Hughes to produce geothermal energy from its oil and gas wells in Rajasthan.
And US geothermal technology company GreenFire Energy is looking to explore geothermal resources in Taiwan, where the local government has tabled incentives to support new projects.
