The company yesterday said testing at the Ortaháza-5 well, which began on Thursday, would continue for several days.

The testing is designed to obtain an estimate of the well production capacity and an understanding the chemical composition of the hot geothermal water.

Green Rock said preliminary results from the testing produced a flow rate of 1150 cubic metres of geothermal water per day and final results will be obtained in the next few days.

After evaluation of these results, the JV will decide whether or not to proceed directly to long-term production testing or to use fracture stimulation and acidising of the fractured carbonates to stimulate and improve the well productivity.

The objective of the project is to develop a 2-5MW geothermal power station, to be commissioned in 2008.

Green Rock has a 32% interest in the project, while Hungarian operator MOL holds 36% and Icelandic company Enex has a 32% stake.