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Paper Number The Iceland Deep Drilling Project10 Years Later - Still an Opportunity for International Collaboration3901

www.icdp-online.org/sites/

iceland/news/

www.iddp.is

1,2HS Orka hf, Reykjanesbær, IS 260, Iceland, 3University of California, Riverside, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Riverside, CA 92521, USA.

G. O. Fridleifsson1 (gof@hs.is), A. Albertsson2 & W. A. Elders3

The major energy companies of Iceland formed a consor-tium to improve the economics and availability of geother-mal resources by investigating the deeper levels of hydro-thermal systems. Drilling the necessary deep wellspresents both technical challenges and opportunities forimportant scientific studies. The IDDP therefore welcomedparticipation by the international scientific community.

Participants from 12 different countries attended two IDDPworkshops funded by the International Continental Scientif-ic Drilling Program (ICDP); the first of these discussed theoptimal scientific drilling strategy, and the second dis-cussed the science program based on more than 50 scien-tific proposals from different investigators.

As a first step towards achieving its goals, rather than drilling a new wide-diameter well from the surface to the total depth, the IDDP Workshop 3proposed to deepen an industry geothermal well being drilled by HitaveitaSudurnesja, situated in a geothermal field on the Reykjanes Peninsula. This wellwould be ideally situated for scientific studies as the Mid-Atlantic Ridgeemerges from the ocean at the southwest tip of Iceland (Figure 1). Thus theReykjanes well would permit scientific investigations both of potentiallyeconomic high-temperature hydrothermal phenomena and of mid-ocean ridgeprocesses similar to those that feed black smokers.

The well was drilled to a depth of 3.1 km. The rockspenetrated consisted of Holocene tholeiites, hyalo-clastites, marine sediments, pillow basalts, and rel-atively coarse-grained diabase dikes. At that time itwas planned that the IDDP would rotary drill andspot core this well to 4.0 km depth in 2006, andthen, in 2007, to deepen the borehole from 4.0 kmto 5.0 km, using continuous wireline coring.

The 3.1 km deepwell becameblocked during aflow test.

Subsequentattempts torecondition thewell failed, and thewell had to beabandoned.

At IDDP- Workshop 4 it was decided that opera-tions would move to Krafla in NE Iceland, one ofthe central volcanoes shown in Figure 1. Lands-virkjun, the operator of the Krafla geothermal field,agreed to drill a 3.5 km deep well and make it avail-able to the IDDP for deepening into the supercriti-cal zone. The hydrothermal system of Krafla is in avolcanic caldera with higher temperature gradientsand more recent volcanic activity than at Reykjanes.

Increased interest in the IDDP on the part ofindustry. Alcoa, Inc., an international aluminumcompany, joined the consortium as financialpartner. Orkuveita Reykjavikur and HitaveitaSudurnesja each made a commitment to drill a3.5 km deep well in their geothermal fields atHengill and Reykjanes, respectively, and makethem available for deepening, as contributionsto the IDDP.

IDDP-workshop 5 reviewed thesituation and reconsidered theplans in view of new circum-stances. However becausedeep drilling plans are furthestalong at Krafla, it was decidedto focus on that field first.

The partners in the IDDPconsortium signed a newcontract to collaborate indeep drilling in Iceland.

Feasibility Report published.

IDDP/ICDP SAGA/PIInternational start-upmeeting.

StatoilHydro becamepartner in the IDDP. Con-tact for drilling at Kraflasigned with the IcelandDrilling Co. Ltd.

The IDDP-01 well wasdrilled and casedto 800 m depth.

2009

Drilled to 2100 m withnumerous problems, sosidetracking was neces-sary. Set Anchor casing to1949 m instead of 2400 m.

Rhyolite magma flowedinto well at 2096 m depth.

We thank the companies and organizations behind the IDDP consortium for the opportunity to

implement the Iceland Deep Drilling Project. We also thank DeepVison, SAGA, GS-, DT-, FHE-

technical groups, as well as all other domestic and international collaborators for the collabora-

tion so far.

We are also grateful for the financial support from the ICDP and the US NSF (award number

EAR-0507625 to Elders).

Acknowledgements

Icel

and

GeoS

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The initial plans of the Iceland Deep DrillingProject (IDDP) were announced and present-ed as an opportunity for international collabo-ration at WGC-2000 in Japan (Friðleifssonand Albertsson, 2000). Now 10 years laterwe review the accomplishment andannounce near future drilling and researchplans of the IDDP.

The IDDP logo shows the essential parame-ters behind the concept of thermal mining.The basic idea by the IDDP is to drill deepenough into the roots of conventional hightemperature hydrothermal systems to pro-duce water at natural supercritical conditionsand bring it to the surface as 400-600°Csuperheated steam, at subcritical pressures(<220 bar).In the event of low permeability the thermalmining cycle could be induced by injectingcold fluid into the hot rocks and completedby retrieving it as steam. That would be aproper Engineered Geothermal System(EGS). With that in mind deep drillinginvolves a win-win situation when exploringthe roots of the high temperature geothermalsystems.

A Feasibility Report was published 2003.

The next international workshop washeld in March 2007 to review progress,and projected costs. After considerablediscussion of the likely problems ofdrilling a slim core hole at great depthand high temperatures, it was decidedthat continuous core drilling was toorisky and too expensive. Instead it wasdecided to drill a wider diameter holethat could be cooled more easily, and totake only spot cores using the rotarydrilling rig alone. Similarly the fluid sam-pling program was scaled down so thatall the equipment would be on the sur-face instead of downhole. A coring sys-tem specially designed for spot coringat very high temperatures was designedand manufactured and given a highlysuccessful test in the well RN-17B atReykjanes and resulted in 100% corerecovery (Skinner et al., 2010,Fridleifeisson and Richter, 2010 andposter 3905).

The international geothermal industrial and scientific soci-ety is invited to participate in the completion of wells IDDP-2and IDDP-3, flow testing and pilot studies for energy pro-duction. The completion of the program is expected to takeplace within this decade. Information on the IDDP projectand its progress will be announced at our website:www.iddp.is.

The IDDP consortium had funded a two year long feasibility studythat was completed and published in 2003. Part I dealt withgeosciences and site selection (Friðleifsson, et al., 2003), Part IIwith drilling strategy (Þórhallsson, et al. 2003), and Part III with fluidhandling and evaluation (Albertsson et al., 2003). Modeling done aspart of the feasibility study indicated that power output from asupercritical well could be enhanced by an order of magnitude rela-tive to that of a typical geothermal well in Iceland.

The RN-17 well at Reykjanes was completedto a depth of 3.1 km, in 2005 but, before sur-rendering it to the IDDP for deepening bycore drilling, the energy company decided toperform a flow test before casing the well.

Unfortunately, while flowing during this testin November 2005 it collapsed and becameblocked. Subsequent attempts at recondi-tioning the well failed, and this borehole wasabandoned in February 2006. This set-backcaused the idea of starting the first deep wellat Reykjanes to be reevaluated.

A team of international scientists was established withsome 60 research proposals and about 100 - 150international scientists, engineers and their studentsfrom at least 15 countries.

Status 2005 : Requests for funds for scientific drillinggranted by ICDP (1.5 M USD) and by US NSF (3.0 MUSD).

2001-2005

This reevaluation took place at a workshop in April 2006. By thistime the IDDP consortium had signed an agreement that commit-ted funds for the deepening the well, and the ICDP and the NSFhad committed funds for the science program. At the workshop,while there were strong arguments for deep drilling at Reykjanes,the focus of attention moved to Krafla in northern Iceland. ThereLandsvirkjun, the operator of the geothermal field, offered to drilla 3.5 km deep well that would then be deepened to 4.5 km. Theidea was to put the subcritical part of the formation behind cas-ing, and then drill deep into the supercritical zone to producesupercritical fluid unmixed with the shallower subcritical fluids.After discussion the decision was made to move operations toKrafla. It was also decided to better characterize the reservoir atKrafla by additional MT survey and micro-seismic monitoringstudies.

References

For references see WGC-2010 paper 3901

International CollaborationsRelated to IDDP-1

Collaborations on IDDP-2and IDDP-3

Invitation

An international collaboration has already been establishedin relation to IDDP-1 well at Krafla, and the preceding “Wellof Opportunity” RN-17 at Reykjanes. It will be modified andrefined depending on the results from the IDDP-1 drilling atKrafla during 2009 and the flow tests to follow.

During 2011-2015 the Reykjavik Energy (OR) and HS Orkahf (HS) intend to drill wells IDDP-2 at Hengill, and IDDP-3at Reykjanes, at their own cost, down to approximately 4km depth and cement in the production casings. Already,OR has purchased all the casings to production depthsand a 2500 class master valve. The cost of each of thenew IDDP wells is expected to be of similar magnitude asIDDP-1 cost estimates. Both wells will be made availablefor deepening into the supercritical zone by the IDDP, withpossible participation by the scientific community.

As yet the funding issue for the deepening of wells IDDP-2and IDDP-3 to ~ 5 km is an open issue. As before theIDDP consortium welcomes international participation. Weseek funding and scientific partners for collaboration.

End of drilling.

End of cooling.

Heat-up period

Flow-test 1

Flow-test 1-B

A new spot coring tool was designedand manufactures

2007

WGC 2010

Background of the IDDP 2000 - 2010

2000 2001 2004 2005 2006

Magma

2002 2003 2008

Introduction Drilling at Reykjanes 2005

Wider Research Goals

IDDP Funding Model

Drilling in Krafla 2009

International Scientific Continental Drilling Program (ICDP)supported meetings and 2 Workshops in 2001 and 2002 (PI’s:GÓF - Wilfred A. Elders and Seiji Seito).

Candidatedrillhole: RN-17was drilled latein 2004 andcompleted to3.1 km depth inFebruary 2005.This well wasflow tested inNovember 2005,and subse-quently lost inFebruary 2006upon cleaning.Cost 4-5 M USD.

Spudding-in of the IDDP-1 well at this site occurred in the summerof 2008 and a surface casing was set at 87 m depth from flange. Alarger rig was mobilized for two intermediate casing to 254 and 785m autumn 2008.

The final drilling plans were reviewed at a “Kick-off Meeting” inearly March 2009. It was then estimated that drilling from 800 m to4500 m should take a further 115 days (Þórhallsson 2010).

Drilling for production casing began late March 2009. At first it pro-ceeded normally, until a series of untoward problems of stuck pipe,twist-offs and necessary fishing operations, occurred, that aredescribed elsewhere at this Congress (Hólmgeirsson et al., 2010).

The complicated drilling operation required cementing off lost fish-es and sidetracking two times, and several weeks delay of the drill-ing operation. Another result was that the first intermediate casingof 13 3/8" was set to only 1949 m instead of the planned 2400 mdepth.

When drilling into the 2100 m depth range for the third time withoutgetting stuck it became clear that 3 times we had drilled into mag-ma, about 1000°C hot. Quenched rhyolitc glass (obsidian) wasreturned to the surface the last time. The drillhole naturallyplugged its bottom by about 20 m thick obsidian plug, and as the1947 m production casing was already in place, the well could becompleted with a 9 5/8" slotted liner to the bottom and an inner 95/8" cemented sacrificial casing above that.

A total loss feed zone was in the open bottom section of the well,which was injected by cold water for 1 additional month after drill-ing (until 7 August 2009) before the well was allowed to heat forthe flow test.

The completed progress of the well completion and its initial flowtesting results will be reported in a series of papers at this Con-gress (Hólmgeirsson et al., 2010, Friðleifsson, et al., 2010; Eldersand Friðleifsson, 2010, Ingason et al., 2010, Ármannsson, 2010).

The first flow test has not been completed before the WGC-2010conference. If the expected conditions, however, will not sustainsuperheated steam production for acceptable time for the fieldoperator, creation of an EGS system by injecting water towards themagma through neighbor wells remains an option for further con-sideration which has a high potential for continuing internationalcollaboration on the IDDP.

IDDP is a long-term industrial driven geothermal research progam

Preparation and funding for drilling took 5 years, 2000-2005

The IDDP program is expected to continue to 2020 (?) and toinvolve at least three 4-5 km deep holes, all of which should reach450-600°C

The purpose is to improve the economics of geothermal energy byproducing spercritical hydrous fluids from drillable depths

Power output from such wells compared to conventional wells mayincrease by factor of 10 - from 4-5 MW electric to 40-50 MWe

Industry/government consortium funds costs equivalent to drillingand testing a deep exploration well

Science agencies fund costs of sampling, coring and testingrequired by the science program and subsequent studies

result:

INDUSTRY DRIVEN SCIENTIFC DRILLING PROJECT

inevitably with a great cost benefit for scientists which would havedifficulties in raising funds for multi-million dollar science projectswhere most of the cost is spent on the dilling operation itself

1. Start-up June 2001

2. Drilling Technology March 2002

3. Science Program October 2002

4. Site Selection (RN-17) June 2004

5. Crisis April 2006

6. Site Selection (IDDP-1) March 2007

7. Kick-off Meeting March 2009

8. Fluid Handling September 2009

Seven Workshops andOrganized Meetings

Mid-ocean rifting and hot spotsSheeted dike complexesHeat transfer from magmaNatural supercritical phenomenaDeep permeable convection cellsHydrothermal water-rock reactionFracturing, self-sealing and permeabilityTechniques drilling, well completion and loggingScientific, industrial, and economic spin-offs

IDDP plan was to continuously core the production zone