Knowhow, Skills and Experience
Projects Overview
Consortium Drilling’s senior leadership team is actively supporting Geothermal Engineering Ltd (GEL) in their United Downs Deep Geothermal Project. This pioneering initiative is advancing into its next phase, focusing on bringing the doublet wells online to extract both geothermal energy and lithium. While the wells are set to power GEL’s Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) plant, Consortium Drilling’s involvement emphasises lithium extraction—a key resource for the clean energy transition. As part of the project, Consortium Drilling is providing equipment and expertise for well testing, reservoir modelling, and injection pump support to ensure safe and effective operations.
In addition to the work at United Downs, Consortium Drilling is also supporting a number of other operators in this emerging sector, providing tailored solutions and technical expertise to advance geothermal and lithium extraction projects across the industry.
Challenges
Integrating Power and Resource Extraction: Combining geothermal power generation with lithium extraction requires seamless coordination between the ORC plant operations and the resource management systems, ensuring both processes function effectively without compromising one another.
Reservoir Dynamics: Accurate reservoir modelling is essential to manage flow rates, pressure, and thermal performance. Understanding the behaviour of the reservoir under dual production and reinjection conditions is crucial for long-term operational stability.
Operational Reliability: Ensuring the injection pumps and testing equipment operate trouble-free under high-pressure, high-temperature conditions is critical to minimising downtime and maintaining project timelines.
Solutions
Expert Equipment Support: Consortium Drilling is supporting advanced well testing equipment tailored to the unique requirements of geothermal and lithium extraction operations. This includes tools for monitoring reservoir behaviour and optimising resource production.
Reservoir Modelling Expertise: The team is leveraging advanced modelling software and techniques to simulate reservoir conditions, enabling precise predictions of well performance under dual extraction and reinjection scenarios.
Safe Effective Trouble-Free Operations: Consortium Drilling is providing technical expertise to ensure the successful activation of the injection pump system, addressing specific operational challenges with precision and care to maintain seamless integration with the overall project infrastructure. This support is focused on enabling reliable, long-term operations while minimising downtime.
Focus on Safety and Efficiency: Consortium Drilling prioritises safety in all operations, employing rigorous protocols to deliver trouble-free results while protecting personnel, equipment, and the environment.
Outcomes
The next phase of the United Downs Deep Geothermal Project is set to achieve critical milestones, including bringing the doublet wells online to power the ORC plant and support lithium extraction. Consortium Drilling’s involvement is ensuring that these operations proceed efficiently, safely, and reliably.
By addressing the complex challenges of integrating power generation and resource extraction, Consortium Drilling is playing a pivotal role in advancing this groundbreaking project. The expertise and solutions provided not only highlight the company’s capability to deliver innovative and effective results but also reinforce its commitment to supporting sustainable energy initiatives and delivering long-term value to clients like Geothermal Engineering Ltd.
Lithium is ‘the new oil’ of the clean energy era, crucial to the production of batteries for electric vehicles