Augsburg, 11.10.2023. The GEOTHERMICA funded project GRE GEO shares its newest information on several presentations and workshops across the world. On September 17th Gawan Berentelg, project engineer at VEE presented GRE GEO to the professional audience at the World Geothermal Congress in Beijing. During the panel “Corrosion in Geothermal Systems” the GRE GEO consortium and the project’s objectives were introduced, and recent findings were shared. This included the core design process with results from failure and service envelope, development of handling tools and results of scale modelling and an outlook with possible future projects.

The next opportunity to learn more about the GRE GEO project is at the DGK in Essen on October 17th during the panel “Drilling technologies”. The presentation will be held by Ferid Seyidov, project engineer at VEE. For a deeper insight there is the opportunity to participate at the workshop “The GRE GEO Project – Development of Corrosion-Resistant Casing System” held be several consortium members at the same event on October 19th.

About GRE GEO

Corrosion and scaling significantly reduce the lifespan of traditionally used steel tubing systems, which must ensure the integrity of the wellbore. Consequently, workover procedures become necessary sooner than expected, which results in a significant financial burden. In contrast, fiberglass casing (GRE) is a desirable alternative because this material is corrosion resistant. However, compared to steel, GRE pipes have been available only with relatively small inner diameters with excessively large outer diameters. The GRE-GEO project (glass fiber reinforced epoxy casing for geothermal applications) is developing a new strategy for well completion. It aims to provide a corrosion-resistant alternative to reduce geothermal energy development and production costs while avoiding additional investment. The project is carried out from a consortium of eight partners:

– Vulcan Energy Engineering GmbH, Germany, main coordinator

– DrillTec GUT GmbH, Germany

– TU Clausthal (ITE), Germany

– Future Pipe Industries (FPI), Netherlands, national market leader

– Dynaflow Research Group DRG, Netherlands

– Nuclear Research and Consulting NRG, Netherlands

– Eartha AG, Switzerland

– Service Industriels de Genève, Switzerland, cooperation partner