GA Drilling has conducted the first public demonstration of its new deep drilling tool, ANCHORBIT. GA Drilling developed the tool to materially cut the cost of deep geothermal drilling by doubling the drilling speed and extending the drillbit lifetime in hard and abrasive formations.
The test was performed on April 25, 2023, in partnership with Nabors Industries Ltd. at its technology center in Houston. Integrating the innovative drilling tools of GA Drilling into Nabors' automated drilling operations is expected to accelerate field commercialization and eliminate traditional economic barriers to deep geothermal projects. This should expand global access to geothermal energy.Geothermal power plants have delivered 24/7 energy for decades but only in specific tectonically active areas like California or Iceland, where only relatively shallow drilling is required. In all other places, conventional technologies have until now not allowed for cost-efficient drilling. GA Drilling is launching breakthrough technologies to gradually unlock this massive fossil-free baseload energy source anywhere needed, delivering terawatts of clean energy from unprecedented depths globally and unlocking the commercial opportunity of geothermal energy.
ANCHORBIT is a downhole walking system that prevents vibrations and improves stability when drilling with rotary systems in the hard and abrasive formations commonly encountered in deep and hot geothermal projects. In these conditions, ANCHORBIT should double the rate of penetration and bit lifetime since the tool allows for the stabilization of the bit in the wellbore and thus applies more weight to the bit. Currently, drilling in such conditions is accompanied by vibrations, a low rate of penetration, and frequent replacement of bits.ANCHORBIT is designed to improve drilling economics and make more geothermal projects economically feasible. It is a plug-and-play solution with conventional rotary drilling, which will enable immediate commercialization after the final development cycle. It is also designed to be part of the GA Drilling’s PLASMABIT technology.
