Current Ongoing Progress Updates:
The Utah FORGE team has started drilling its first highly deviated deep well. Highly deviated wells are frequently drilled for oil and gas production, but not by the geothermal industry. The Utah FORGE team will be one of the first to tackle this challenge while drilling in hot, hard crystalline granite.
Well 16A(78)-32 is the first deviated well to be drilled and it will take the next 4 months. The well spudded early morning on October 30th.
UPDATE November 9
Drilling has proceeded smoothly and advanced to almost 5,000' depth. The basement contact was crossed on Saturday, October 7 at about 4600' depth as anticipated.
UPDATE November 19
Drilling is proceeding on schedule, though at a slower rate, now that we are going through the hard basement granitic rock. Currently we have paused at 5,500' (half way to the 11,000 ft planned) to run an 18hr temperature survey.
UPDATE November 25
Well 16A(32)-78 is currently partway through the build, at a measured depth of about 6300 ft. We successfully ran a temperature survey, an image log (UBI) and collected approximately 56 ft of core. The static temperature recorded at a depth of 5,501 ft depth is close to 300°F. Drilling the first part of the curve proceeded at about 30 ft/hr.
UPDATE December 1
Reached 7, 320 ft MD and now drilling into the tangent section of the well. TVD at 7, 031 ft.
Drilling completed - READ MORE
Overview of the Utah FORGE site and the 16A(78)-32 drill pad.