Drilling at the South Australian well reached a depth of 1672m by September 1 and was progressing through granite exhibiting horizontal fracturing.

Green Rock says the nature of the rock should facilitate the establishment of an underground network of fractures extending horizontally into the deeper, hotter rock, thereby lowering geothermal power-production costs.

“Wells producing superheated water from the hotter rocks to be drilled could be spaced further apart from the injection wells. This means a greater area of potential hot rock resources could be tapped by fewer wells, resulting in lower production costs,” Green Rock said.

Blanche-1 is the third-deepest geothermal energy well drilled in Australia and the first outside the remote Cooper Basin area to have intersected its target granite, which forms part of the Burgoyne Batholith.

The granite was located in Green Rock’s geothermal exploration licenses by shallow drilling by Western Mining Corporation.

Blanche-1 is 5km from a high voltage electricity transmission line traversing Green Rock’s geothermal licence areas, and connects the Olympic Dam mine site to the Adelaide and South Eastern Australia electricity grids.

Green Rock says it is focused on becoming a major producer of geothermal energy and its strategic advantage lies in the location of its tenements.