Hunting Makes Inroads Into The UK Geothermal Space

Hunting Energy Services (Hunting) has entered the United Kingdom geothermal market by providing engineering, manufacturing, and logistics services to the Eden project in Cornwall.

While this is the company's first deployment in the United Kingdom it is not planning to stop there but has made plans to further expand into the European geothermal arena.

The scope of work included project managing and transporting 20,000 feet of the casing to the Eden Geothermal site. Hunting also provided 20 of its personnel, including logistics staff, OCTG engineers manufacturing and operations for the campaign, and provided onsite tubular running support.

Eden project is led by a three-way partnership Eden Geothermal Limited (EGL) consisting of Eden Project Limited, EGS Energy Limited, and BESTEC UK Limited – an affiliate of BESTEC GmbH.

The project aims to build a geothermal plant using the heat from the granite underground to produce the heat and power Eden needs, plus enough electricity for the equivalent of up to 7,000 homes.

EGL secured $26.7 million to drill the first well. The funding was secured through European Regional Development Fund, Cornwall Council, and commercial funding from GCP Infrastructure Investments Limited, an investment trust advised by Gravis Capital Management Ltd.

“We are very excited that our first foray to support the UK’s energy transition is with the pioneering Eden Geothermal project,” Ian Park UK managing director for Hunting, stated.

“There are great synergies for our tubular product line across many of the renewable energy industries including geothermal, making us the ideal choice for this ground-breaking project. We have been able to apply our expert methodology, technical support, logistics, and project management skills to deliver our products safely, which has opened the door for us to support further geothermal projects in the future,” Park added.

“Hunting Energy Services supplied us with all our casing needs for 17,312 feet (MD) geothermal well in granite. The casing was ordered in the middle of the first Covid lockdown however Hunting still managed to deliver all the casing with no delays to the program,” Max Skerratt, project manager for Eden, said.

“The communication and aftersales service with experienced onsite technicians to help us run the casing was a great help. We would not hesitate to use Hunting again for any of our OCTG requirements,” he concluded.

The first well will be followed by a second one and an electricity plant enabling Eden to export enough electricity and heat to wipe out its carbon footprint.

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