Hundreds of thousands of oil and gas wells have reached their end of economic life, often due to low hydrocarbon production combined with high water cuts making continued production uneconomic. Originally drilled in sedimentary rock formations to develop conventional hydrocarbon reservoirs, many of these producing wells encountered late water breakthrough or revealed adjacent hydrothermal reservoirs (heated aquifers).
In some of these wells, high bottom hole temperatures are responsible for the production stream to be hot enough for use in geothermal energy solutions. Being able to capture this heat and use for the production of Geothermal Energy as an additional value stream helps make continued hydrocarbon production economic.
Sometimes this produced water also has significant amounts of dissolved methane able to be separated and monetised along with the residual hydrocarbon production. The heated fluids are able to be used to produce Geothermal Energy.
