Reducing Drilling Cost in Geothermal Wells by Drilling Technology Optimization

Amer, Mohamed Y; Salem, Adel M; Farahat, Mohammed S; Elsayed, Said Kamel

doi:10.22044/jme.2025.14206.2647

Document Type : Case Study

Authors

¹ Egyptian Drilling Company (EDC), Egypt

² Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University, Egypt

³ Faculty of Petroleum and Mining Engineering, Suez University

⁴ Petroleum Engineering Dept., Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Future University in Egypt (FUE), Cairo 11835, Egypt

https://doi.org/10.22044/jme.2025.14206.2647

Abstract

Sustainable production of sufficient energy to power the world’s economy with a minimum environmental footprint has been one of the most significant challenges for the decades. Geothermal energy has been considered as one of the promising options to meet the world’s future energy demand. The cost of drilling geothermal wells is between 35% and 50% of the total investment cost for the new high-temperature geothermal plants. This “up front” cost makes the geothermal plants more expensive to build than the conventional plants, and because of this and the perceived risk, a lot of attention has been focused on reducing this cost.
This paper attempts to minimize the cost of drilling deep wells such as AG-119X, in Egypt of 20060 ft. in depths; in this well, the actual cost was more than the proposed by about five million USD. The actual cost of the drilling operation has been analyzed and compared with the proposed; by observing the cost of each drilling item, it was found that the power drive tools in the bottom hole assembly such as the downhole motor with Rotary Steerable drilling system (RSS) or turbodrill hydraulic downhole motor is the most costly element of the drilling operation in 8.5 holes, which tack thirteen trips in every trip with a new bit, and it was found that the turbodrill hydraulic downhole motor was costly effected in drilling the shush section, in this, and can save around 1756999 USD; this paper is a road map for reducing the cost of drilling geothermal wells.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Geothermal

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Reducing Drilling Cost in Geothermal Wells by Drilling Technology Optimization

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Volume 16, Issue 3May and June 2025Pages 767-788

Volume 16, Issue 3
May and June 2025
Pages 767-788