Texas, USA

For the past 44 years, the USGS and Texas university academics have been highlighting the Geothermal potential of Texas.  Five areas have been identified:  (1) Trans-Pecos Region; (2) Delaware and Val Verde Basins (within Permian Basin); (3) Texas Anadarko Basin; (4) East Texas (HDR and Geopressured); and (5) Gulf Coast (Geopressured).

Drilling and producing tens of thousands of deep oil & gas wells along with the associated geoscience work have identified potentially suitable rock formation and reservoir properties with bottom hole temperatures in excess of 143°C.

Good opportunity exists for conventional oil & gas companies to begin to access this clean, renewable energy resource with a portion of their work programs as part of the Energy Transition.

A particularly interesting Geothermal area is where deep geopressured Tertiary sands are located along the Texas Gulf Coast, both onshore and nearshore.  These geopressured sands have an increased geothermal gradient and are confined by shale beds which facilitated the high pressures and temperatures above 300°F (149°C) – a “geothermal fairway”.  Dissolved methane is also present in these aquifers.