Founded in 1992 by William “Bill” Rickard, Geothermal Resource Group, Inc. (GRG) has become a leader in the global geothermal industry. Drawing of many years of field experience in geothermal drilling around the world, GRG began by providing drilling engineering consulting services to the geothermal industry. Seeing the benefits of expert drilling engineering, our customers began to request on-site drilling supervision services to ensure that these engineering designs were correctly applied in the field. GRG responded by providing the most experienced, responsible, skilled well site supervisors available in the industry. Some geothermal developers require complete drilling program development and oversight, and GRG responded by providing full service drilling management services.
GRG has grown with an established reputation for being a geothermal consulting company focused on geosciences, drilling engineering, resource assessment, and other essential disciplines to meet our customer’s needs.
GRG, with a small permanent staff, has the freedom to partner with the specialists needed to complete each project efficiently with the right expert for the project. GRG has partner relationships with many subject experts, to add to the in-house expertise as needed, whether that be a specialist geophysicist, geochemist, modeler, or geologist.
GRG worked closely with the University of Utah to support the drilling of an experimental Engineered Geothermal System (EGS) well in Fall 2017. The drilling was part of is an initiative of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) called FORGE. GRG is a project partner to the University of Utah, at the Milford, Utah site. For the planning stages, GRG provided well design, technical specifications for the drilling rig, ancillary services, and materials. At the site, GRG assisted with the rig selection and contracting of all services and materials. At execution of the project, GRG provided the drilling and testing supervision, as well as offsite engineering, for this well which was successfully completed and tested under budget and in less time than planned. GRG will continue to provide drilling engineering, field management and supervision for the University of Utah, into the next stages of the project.
GRG has provided drilling supervision, senior geologists and well site geologists for the 36-well 330 MW development by Sarulla Operations Limited (SOL) at the Sarulla Geothermal Field in North Sumatra, Indonesia between 2014 and continuing through 2018. Up to four rigs were operating simultaneously during the peak of development drilling. The presence of a viable geothermal resource at the Sarulla Geothermal Field was first proved by Unocal Geothermal in the late 1980s with the completion of several of the world’s most productive geothermal wells. The development that commenced in 2014 required drilling, completion and testing of high temperature, high pressure, and highly productive geothermal wells. As the development drilling has continued, GRG was requested to take a larger role in providing drilling engineering services to SOL, with great success.
GRG has an ongoing project with the City of Akutan located in the Aleutian Island chain of Alaska, United States to provide the technical and scientific aspects of the geothermal exploration and development for the proposed development of 5-10 MW. In 2010, GRG planned, coordinated, directed and supervised the exploratory drilling of two thermal gradient wells. GRG supervised, designed and executed the data analysis after the successful completion of drilling. GRG planned coordinated and executed a successful field season of MT and gravity data acquisition and creation of a new geological map of the prospect area in 2012. A contracted geophysical company provided the field expertise and equipment for execution of the geophysical surveys. GRG coordinated and participated in the interpretation of MT, gravity and geological data for the development of a conceptual model of the field area and selection of drilling targets in 2012 and 2013. The City of Akutan received grant funding to drill an additional exploration well in 2016, and GRG provided drilling planning, engineering, supervision, and mud logging services. GRG recently completed testing on this well in summer of 2017.
GRG was selected by the Commonwealth of Dominica to provide drilling engineering, drilling supervision, well testing, and other resource assessment activities for three exploration slim wells, one injection well and one production well. These are the first wells drilled in this Eastern Caribbean nation. The wells range in depth from 1200 m to 1900 m, reaching temperatures of 250°C. GRG selected the drilling target for the first production well, which proved to be highly productive, with an estimated power generation potential of 11 MW. Based on this discovery, development is continuing with additional well drilling and construction of a power plant.
Hudson Ranch Phase I is a 49 MW development of the Salton Sea Geothermal Field located in Imperial County, California. GRG was responsible for all drilling engineering and supervision for the successful completion of seven geothermal wells. The materials required to construct wells in this high temperature, hypersaline geothermal resource included high-nickel alloy casings and specialized calcium phosphate cement blends to protect against the corrosive and highly acidic brines. Bottom hole temperatures in these wells are greater than 600ºF. The remaining six were drilled to depths ranging from 6900 ft. to 7800 ft. GRG was responsible for the selection of the drilling contractor, review of all drilling services bids, as well as all ancillary well service and drilling support subcontractors. The Hudson Ranch Power I power plant is currently in full operation, and GRG continues to provide workover assistance as requested.
| Drilling Engineering & Supervision | https://youtu.be/48KKUp2vBsI |
| GRG Worldwide Experience | https://youtu.be/6c2AtYbVVzg |
| GRG Reservoir Engineering & GeoScience | https://youtu.be/nBILwVjrBeU |
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GRG Worldwide Experience - https://youtu.be/6c2AtYbVVzg