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Akutan plans a new geothermal well City wants to confirm the scale of a known resource that might supply electrical power for local residents and Trident seafood plant ALAN BAILEY Petroleum News
The City of Akutan in the Aleutian Islands has obtained an Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission permit to drill a third geothermal test well on the island. The city drilled two test wells in 2010.
In common with other islands in the Aleutian chain, Akutan is the site of an active volcano that has the potential to provide geothermal heat for power generation. And, in addition to a local community which could use geothermal power as an alternative to expensive diesel power, the island hosts a large seafood production facility, owned by Trident Seafood Corp. This facility also uses electricity from diesel generators.
But, with a low population density and a correspondingly low power demand, even taking into account the power needed to process seafood, the economics of building and operating a geothermal plant are challenging.
Two wells Ray Mann, program manager for the City of Akutan, has told Petroleum News that the 2010 wells had both been thin holes. One, in a fumarole area on the slope of the volcano, had found a major resource with very high power generation potential. But the $12 million to $16 million cost of building an access road to the site would have been prohibitive. And, with all equipment having to be helicopter transportable, it would not have been possible to position a major drilling rig at the site, Mann said.
The second well, in what is referred to as the outflow area, in the valley below the volcano, found a very good resource, albeit not as large as in the fumarole area, Mann said. The well encountered temperatures in excess of 360 degrees F at a depth of some 500 feet, he said. This site, on the floor of the valley and only a mile or so from the beach, is more accessible than the higher site, thus appearing a more practical option for geothermal development. The purpose of the planned third well, to be drilled in the valley, close to the second well, is to confirm the scale of the geothermal resource in the outflow area, Mann said.
Less power, more practical Whereas the higher site might have enabled power generation at a level of some 10 megawatts, the lower site would likely support something about 2 megawatts to 3 megawatts, Mann said. The Trident plant, which uses up to some 7.5 megawatts of power, would use whatever geothermal power is available while supplementing that with diesel power, he said.
Mann said that the City of Akutan has been restructuring the geothermal project with the Alaska Energy Authority, the main contributor to the project. The project has received a $130,000 grant from the Department of Energy, a grant that had originally been earmarked for a similar project on Makushin Volcano on Unalaska Island, he said.
Summer 2016 drilling The plan now is to stage the equipment required for drilling the third Akutan well in June 2016, with the drilling taking place in July and August of that year, and with the entire operation from mobilization to demobilization taking about 60 days, Mann said. After analyzing the data from the drilling, if the geothermal resource is confirmed at an appropriate scale, the project team will prepare a business plan and hold discussions with potential partners for a geothermal development project. Those potential partners include Trident, Akutan Corp. and Aleut Corp. Outside entities interested in investing in geothermal energy may also be interested in participating, Mann said. Akutan Corp. is the local Native village corporation, while Aleut Corp. is the Native regional corporation.
With Akutan Corp. owning the surface land and Aleut Corp. owning the subsurface at the drilling site, the City of Akutan has already signed exploration and development agreements with both of these entities. However, once the city has a geothermal development plan, the city will ask the two landowners how they want to proceed and if they want to participate in the project, Mann said. Trident remains interested in the project, he said.
New technologies Given the need to find a viable means of developing the geothermal resource, after the confirmation well has been completed the geothermal project team anticipates investigating new technologies that might reduce costs. There are, for example, new wellhead technologies coming available, with the possibility of geothermal plant packages that could be dropped into the development site. It may also be possible to avoid major road construction by installing a new type of unattended plant that only requires occasional maintenance access, Mann said.
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