Research News – Utah FORGE

Press Release: Drilling of the Production Well Begins

Utah FORGE Drills Geothermal Production Well.

Second deep deviated well in doublet pair.
A highly deviated well drilled in hard, hot crystalline granite – will mirror previously drilled injection well.
Total length of the well will be approximately 10,700 feet.

SALT LAKE CITY, UT., 26 April, 2023 - The Utah Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE), funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, is excited to announce that the drilling of its second highly deviated deep well has commenced. This second well will serve as the production well of a two well doublet, and will mirror the existing injection well, which was drilled between October 2020 and February 2021. The new well will be located approximately 300 feet from the injection well.

Like the injection well, the upper part of the well will be drilled vertically through approximately 4,550 feet of sediments at which point it will penetrate into hard crystalline granite. At about 5,600 feet, the well will be gradually steered at a 5-degree angle for each 100 feet until it reaches an inclination of 65 degrees from its vertical point. The total length of the well will be approximately 10,700 feet with the “toe” – or the end of the well – reaching a vertical depth of 8,265 feet. The temperature at this depth will be 440 degrees F.

“This is a crucial next step in the Utah FORGE project’s goal of de-risking the tools and technologies required for making Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) technologies commercially viable” said Dr. Joseph Moore, and Principal Investigator of Utah FORGE. “This new well will serve as the production well. In the future, water will be pumped into the injection well, travel through the reservoir of tiny fractures that we previously opened, absorb the heat from the hard, hot crystalline granite, and then be pumped up through this new production well to the surface. This will help us capture the enormous energy potential beneath our feet and bring low cost, environmentally green, and renewable energy across the United States.”

Once the well is completed, a series of tests will be run to continue facilitating the development of the EGS reservoir and its long-term connectivity. Additional tests will also include determining the stress conditions through short-term injection experiments, during which microseismicity will be carefully monitored.

About Utah FORGE: The Utah FORGE project is managed by the Energy & Geoscience Institute at the University of Utah. Funding for the project is provided by the U.S. Department of Energy. The FORGE site is located near the town of Milford in Beaver County, Utah, on the western flank of the Mineral Mountains. Near term goals are aimed at perfecting drilling, stimulation, injection-production, and subsurface imaging technologies required to establish and sustain continuous fluid flow and energy transfer from an EGS reservoir. For more information, please visit our website at https://utahforge.com.

Media Contact: Christopher Katis ckatis@egi.utah.edu

Media Kit

SSA Annual Meeting 2023

Announcing SSA session

De-risking Deep Geothermal Projects: Geophysical Monitoring and Forecast Modeling Advances

Co-conveners: Federica Lanza, Kristine Pankow, David Eaton, Nori Nakata, Ryan Schulz, Annemarie Mutendam-Bos

We seek contributions from EGS projects and field test sites that focus on geophysical technologies applied to geothermal energy, such as real-time monitoring and characterization of induced seismicity, distributed acoustic sensing, large-N array, active surface seismic, vertical seismic profiling, seismic imaging of faults and fracture zones, laboratory experiments and novel instrumentation. We also welcome submission of abstracts on modeling studies at all scales, seismicity forecasting models, hazard and risk analysis studies as well as presentations dealing with good-practice guidelines and risk assessment procedures that would help in reducing commercial costs and enhancing the safety of future geothermal projects.

Please consider submitting your abstract to our session before the deadline on 11 January 2023, at 5 p.m Pacific.

Detailed information on how to submit an abstract can be found at: https://meetings.seismosoc.org/submit/

Hope to see you in San Juan!

U of U and Utah FORGE announce Solicitation 2022-2

Press Release August 15, 2022

University of Utah and Utah FORGE Announce Second Solicitation

- - - - Solicitation will total up to $44,000,000
        
        Up to 17 awards anticipated
        
        A pre-recorded informational webinar will be available on Aug. 23, 2022
        
        Concept Papers are due October 10, 2022, at 2:00 PM MDT

SALT LAKE CITY, UT., Aug.15, 2022 - The University of Utah and Utah Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) are pleased to announce Utah FORGE Solicitation 2022-2. This is the second formal call for research proposals on enhanced geothermal systems technologies from the Utah FORGE Program. Up to 17 awards are anticipated for up to a total of $44,000,000.

A pre-recorded informational webinar will be available on August 23, 2022.

The submission deadline for the two-page Concept Papers has been set for October 10, 2022, at 2:00 PM MDT.

The topic areas for technology testing and evaluations, their maximum potential funding level and the potential number of awards include:

Topic	Title	Potential Funding	Potential Number of Awards
6	Adaptive Induced Seismicity Monitoring Protocols	$2,000,000	2 to 3
7	Alternative Stimulation Schemes	$8,000,000	2 to 3
8	Field Scale Experiments to Measure Heat-Sweep Efficiency	$8,000,000	2 to 4
9	High Temperature Proppants	$6,000,000	2 to 4
10	Multiset Straddle Packers for Open Hole Operations	$20,000,000	2 to 3

Each award has a maximum period of performance of three years.

“We are pleased to offer this second funding opportunity. It allows us to engage a wide range of researchers in helping to build on the many successes already realized at Utah FORGE,” said Joseph Moore, Ph.D. and Principal Investigator of the project.

Utah FORGE is a dedicated underground field laboratory sponsored by the U. S. Department of Energy’s Geothermal Technologies Office. Its goal is to develop, test, and accelerate breakthroughs in Enhanced Geothermal System, or EGS, to untap the vast potential of geothermal energy and advance its development across the US and around the world.

For more information about the University of Utah and the Utah FORGE Solicitation 2022-2, how to download the full document, and how to submit your application, please visit the Utah FORGE solicitation webpage (https://utahforge.com/rd/solicitations).

About Utah FORGE: The Utah FORGE site is located near the town of Milford in Beaver County, Utah, on the western flank of the Mineral Mountains. Near term goals are aimed at perfecting drilling, stimulation, injection-production, and subsurface imaging technologies required to establish and sustain continuous fluid flow and energy transfer from an EGS reservoir. It is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and managed by the University of Utah’s Energy & Geoscience Institute. For more information, please visit our website at https://utahforge.com.

Media Contact: Christopher Katis - ckatis@egi.utah.edu

Successful 3-stage hydraulic stimulation of injection well 16A(78)-32

The Utah FORGE research team has achieved yet another major milestone in advancing enhanced geothermal system technologies with the successful completion of the first large scale 10-day stimulation trial (April 14-24, 2022) in the deep deviated well 16A(78)-32. Three intervals were tested in sequence at greater than 10,000 ft depth, including the open hole at the toe of the well (Stage I), followed by two shallower 20 ft intervals that were lined with solid casing (Stages 2 and 3). In each stage, between 3000 and 4000 barrels of water were injected under pressure, causing pre-existing fractures in the reservoir to dilate and transfer heat to the injected cold water. After a 4-hour shut in, the hot injected water was produced back to the surface under controlled flow conditions. The stimulation trial ran according to schedule and plan, including the seamless deployment and retrieval of the bridge plugs at high pressures and temperature.

The ability to initiate, propagate and ideally control hydraulic fracture growth is essential for realistically evaluating the potential for commercial EGS applications. Success here is important for promoting technical and hybrid EGS methods that use hydraulic injection to provide a heat exchange network or to achieve more effective connections with potentially productive natural fractures.

In late 2022 or early 2023, a second deep deviated well, the production well, will be drilled to intersect the hydraulic fractures. The connectivity of the fractures between the two wells will be established or improved, and short-term circulation testing will begin to assess the thermal viability geothermal reservoir.

Utah FORGE wraps up a 3-stage hydraulic stimulation of well 16A(78)-32

Utah FORGE is excited to announce the successful completion of the three-stage hydraulic stimulation of its first highly deviated injection well, 16A(78)-32.

Well 16A(78)-32 drilling was completed in January 2021. This is an inclined well (65°to the vertical) that will be the injection arm of the doublet that forms the heart of the Utah FORGE experimental configuration.

Subsequently, two additional monitoring wells – vertical – were drilled so that they, along with existing well 58-32, could serve as monitoring wells for future work at the FORGE site. In particular, wells 58-32, 78B-32 and 56-32 had been instrumented with fiber optics and geophones to triangulate on microseismic events during the recent fracturing in Well 16A(78)-32. These microseismic clouds define the morphology of three hydraulic fractures created at the toe (extremity) of Well 16A(78)-32.

A chronology of the events for the recent three-stage hydraulic fracturing is as follows:

Fourteen frac tanks were sited on the location and filled with Milford City culinary water. Each tank holds 500 bbl (21,000 gallons per tank) of water.
Frontier Drilling Rig 28 was trucked to the location, assembled, and brought into service.
A preliminary run of drill pipe was made into the hole. This drill string had a bit with a casing scraper and a drift sub. The bit was run to near the end of the open-hole section of the wellbore while the casing scraper was positioned to stay within the cased-hole and ensured the absence of debris. The drift sub was run one joint above the casing scraper and guaranteed that there was adequate clearance to run additional tools (in particular, bridge plugs).
Extreme Wireline next ran a perforating gun on the end of drill pipe into the openhole section (below 10,787 ft MD). In addition to the perforating gun, a mechanical casing collar locator was run and confirmed the casing tally so that the depth of the gun was more accurately known. This 3-1/8” diameter gun was 2 ft long with 6 shots per foot at 60° phasing. MTS Solutions pumped down the drill pipe to seat a dropped ball and fire the guns. The successful firing served as a check shot for orienting geophones in the three offset wells.
MTS Solutions next pumped a Shear Stimulation Test for one hour at an average rate of 0.36 bpm followed by shutdown and monitoring the pressure decline for an hour. A total of 52 bbl of water was pumped for this test.

STAGE 1

Liberty Oilfield Services next pumped down the casing and followed the prescribed fracturing plan for stimulation Stage 1, reaching an injection rate of 50 bpm with slickwater (refer to Figure 1). 4,261 bbl were pumped. The well was shut in for four hours and flowed back.
After 16 hours of flowback, Interwell US ran a bridge plug to a depth of 10,670 ft MD (middle of the sealing element). MTS Solutions pumped to set the bridge plug. The bridge plug was tested to 5,000 psi using MTS Solutions’ pumping equipment through the drill pipe and later to over 7,000 psi using Liberty Oilfield Services’ pumping equipment, down the casing.
After tripping the bridge plug setting tool out of the hole, an Extreme Wireline perforating gun was run into the hole on the end of drill pipe. This was a 20-ft long perforating gun (6 shots per ft, 60° phasing, 21-gram Hero charges). It was run to cover a depth of 10,560 to 10,580 ft MD. MTS Solutions pumped a dropped ball to a seat to fire the guns. The guns were retrieved. All 120 shots had fired, providing an entry from the wellbore to the formation.

STAGE 2

Liberty Oilfield Services next pumped 2,777 bbl of slickwater down the casing and followed the prescribed fracturing plan, reaching an injection rate of 35 bpm. This was Stage 2. There was an intentional hard shutdown in the initial 5 bpm stage and also part way through the 35-bpm stage. The well was shut in and pressure decline was monitored for 4 hours. The well was then opened up and flowed back for 12 hours. The treatment data are shown in Figure 2.
After flowback, Interwell US ran a second bridge plug to a depth of 10,466 ft MD (center of the sealing element). MTS Solutions pumped to set the bridge plug. The bridge plug was pressure tested to 4,960 psi by MTS Solutions through the drill pipe and later to 6,800 psi using Liberty Oilfield Services pumping equipment, down the casing.
An Extreme Wireline perforating gun was next run on the end of drill pipe to cover a depth of 10,120 to 10,140 ft MD. This was a 20-ft long perforating gun (6 shots per ft, 60° phasing, 21-gram Hero charges). MTS Solutions pumped to seat a ball and fire the guns. The guns were retrieved. All 120 shots had fired, providing an entry from the wellbore to the formation.

STAGE 3

Liberty Oilfield Services next pumped down the casing for Stage 3 and followed the prescribed fracturing plan, reaching an injection rate of 35 bpm. A slickwater pad was pumped followed by a crosslinked CMHPG fluid with DEEPROP™ microproppant at planned concentrations of 0.5 to 0.75 ppa. The total pumped fluid volume was 3,016 bbl. The well was shut in and flowed back (for more than 15 hr). Refer to Figure 3.
During the shut-in time, the Liberty frac crew began to rig-down their equipment and demobilize.
The well was re-entered with drill pipe and an Interwell US retrieving tool to release and recover the second bridge plug that was set. The bridge plug was successfully released and recovered to the surface. After disconnecting and laying down the bridge plug the retrieving tool was run back into the well to recover the first bridge plug that was set. This plug was also successfully retrieved and laid down.