Beginning in August and concluding in December of last year, after having drilled a two-leg multilateral well down to 18,000ft TVD and ~250C, Eavor met its objectives, including achieving technical milestones which have drawn a follow-on investment of C$10 million from bp Ventures.
These milestones were a combination of technical and operational measures and markers including depth, temperature, bit-life and rate of penetration in granite rock.
Several other objectives were reached including the isolation of the upper fractured permeable zone with casing to enable drilling of the multilaterals in the deeper low permeability basement rock, and subsequent sealing with Rock-Pipe technology; demonstrated insulated drill pipe (IDP) thermodynamic and mechanical performance with increased Rate of Penetration aided by shock cooling; successfully executed cased hole side-track in granite; and demonstrated directional steering ability in hard rock with difficult intrusions and interbedded metamorphic formations.
Helmerich & Payne, Inc. (H&P) has also added to its 2021 equity investment, bringing its total to C$10.2 million, building on the companies' ongoing collaborative efforts to further advance state-of-the-art drilling technologies.
Mark Hodder, VP drilling at Eavor, said: "The opportunity to confront this level of technical drilling challenges is rare. Our successes at Eavor-Deep are credited to the talents, commitment and passion of the combined teams of Eavor and H&P."
Combined with the proof of concept demonstrated at the Derek Riddell Eavor-Lite demonstration facility near Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, Canada in 2019, the milestones reached at Eavor-Deep in 2022 have validated all the key elements required to construct and operate commercial Eavor-Loops.
Matt Toews, CTO at Eavor, said: "The goals for our technology include not only reaching sub US$60 per megawatt-hour costs but to enable widespread global scalability. The progress made in New Mexico is a critical step in this endeavour, and alongside our partners we will continue this process of innovation and iteration."
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