Saskatchewan driller hits ‘gusher’ with ground-breaking geothermal well that offers hope for oil workers
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Deep is also responsible for the deepest vertical well ever drilled in Saskatchewan, after announcing in Nov. 2018 it had drilled a 3,530-metre well.
Governments in Alberta and Saskatchewan have been revamping regulations for drilling and for power generation in an attempt to stimulate geothermal power investment in their provinces partly because the geothermal industry uses many of the same skills as the existing oil and gas industry.
This week, Alberta MLAs passed legislation that will allow the province’s energy regulator to develop a new framework for geothermal wells to be licensed and drilled in the province. The bill is considered a way to keep oilfield services workers, such as drillers, working as investment in renewable energy is projected to rise in the coming years.
Everything we’re doing is figuratively and literally on the backs of these highly skilled oilfield workers. We couldn’t do this without this expertise in this part of the world
DEEP Earth Energy CEO Kirsten Marcia
While other geothermal wells have been drilled in Canada previously to channel heat directly from the earth, Deep and a handful of other companies are among the first in the country to use the earth’s heat to generate electricity.
In Alberta, Calgary-based oil and gas producer Razor Energy Corp. is working on a geothermal project north of Edmonton that would retrofit existing wells to produce 3MW to 5MW of geothermal power.
Near Fort Nelson, B.C., a natural gas-rich town, a non-profit research association called Geoscience BC is undertaking a feasibility study of the Clark Lake Geothermal project that would repurpose a gas field to produce geothermal power.
