Petratherm's Spanish Projects Heating Up

Petratherm's Spanish Projects Heating Up

Leading geothermal energy company Petratherm (ASX: PTR) has been buoyed by findings that its geothermal energy tenements in the Spanish capital, Madrid, have the equivalent energy potential of South Australia's Cooper Basin annual gas production.

A technical paper prepared by Petratherm's French expert geothermal consultants, GPC-IP, has confirmed an "exploitable energy potential" of 170 petajoules (PJ) in the area controlled by Petratherm , with the broader Madrid basin area having a potential exploitable energy potential of 730PJ.

"The company's northeastern Madrid license area is considered the most prospective area with the hottest known zones based on knowledge drawn from five existing deep wells," Petratherm Managing Director Mr. Terry Kallis said today.

The findings were presented in a paper by Mr. Pierre Ungemach , Principal Consultant of GPC-IP, at the recent inaugural Madrid Geothermal Energy Conference which attracted over 400 delegates from across Spain and Europe.

"The Madrid conference was led and sponsored by the Spanish Federal and Madrid regional governments demonstrating their strong support for geothermal energy as a desired part of Spain's future energy mix.

"Spain has high reliance on importing energy from other countries and the need for both improved energy security and a greater use of renewable energy combine to make geothermal energy a very attractive solution on both fronts.

"Spain also has a need to add more base-load power, potentially from geothermal energy, following the extensive use of intermittent energy forms such as solar photovoltaics and wind farms in recent years."

Adelaide-based Petratherm has a portfolio of quality geothermal projects in Australia, Spain and China. In Spain, Petratherm has seven projects covering the spectrum of geothermal energy technologies - district heating, volcanic conventional electricity and "hot rock".

The Geo-Madrid District Heating Project, located 25km north of Madrid, aims to service the heating and cooling needs of a nearby university and a number of large Madrid regional government buildings.

The company is on track to achieve project revenues by July 2010.

In other developments, the company will undertake its third and most important field trip to China this month with the assistance of four Chinese government institutions with which it has an exclusive agreement to provide geological and geothermal data.

Drilling activity at the company's $190million, 30 Megawatt flagship project at Paralana in the northern Flinders Ranges is scheduled to commence in mid-2009.

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Terry Kallis
Petratherm Limited
08 8274 5000

Jenny Brinkworth
Hughes Public Relations
08 8412 4100 or 0419 808 789

SOURCE: Petratherm