HS Orka hf. - Company Announcement

HS Orka and Jardboranir sign a contract on deep drilling at Iceland’s Reykjanes geothermal field

HS Orka and Jardboranir have signed a contract for drilling of a 5 km deep,
high temperature well at the Reykjanes geothermal field. Jardboranir’s biggest
drilling rig „Thor“ will be used for the project. The well is intended to be
the country’s deepest and hottest geothermal well, with temperatures up to
500°C. Drilling operations are scheduled in the second half of 2016. 

HS Orka’s existing 2,5 km well at Reykjanes, well 15, will be deepened to
around 5 km. The contract realizes the next step of the Icelandic Deep Drilling
Project (IDDP), but earlier drilling into superheated steam was conducted in
the Krafla field. The purpose of the project is to demonstrate the possibility
of harnessing deep hydrothermal high enthalpy reservoirs in order to augment
the current conventional geothermal fields. If the chemistry of the superheated
steam can be dealt with, the well will be used directly for power production,
potentially increasing the output of the Reykjanes plant.  If not, the well may
be used as an injection well, increasing the output of the existing shallower
production wells. New technology will be introduced for the drilling, testing
and harnessing the deep well, in collaboration with domestic and international
partners. 

HS Orka manages the project in cooperation with Statoil in Norway and the
partners inside the IDDP consortium. The IDDP project was recently awarded an
over 9 million Euro research grant from the European Union research program
“Horizon 2020”. The project is led by HS Orka in cooperation with, Isor,
Landsvirkjun, Georg, Statoil and number of European companies. 

THE IDDP project has being ongoing the last 15 years. The consortium consists
of the Icelandic power companies HS Orka, Landsvirkjun, Orkuveita Reykjavikur
together with the National Energy Authority and Statoil.