– The drilling engine has been handed over for a complete overhaul. The team is currently performing maintenance on the entire drilling rig and after this work, drilling will continue to the intended depth of seven kilometres – said Rafał Szkaradziński, mayor of the Szaflary commune (Lesser Poland province), in an interview with PAP, as quoted by the portal wnp.pl. The drill reached a depth of 6,050 meters.
Geothermal drilling in Szaflary has stopped. The investment will have another delay
The top drive motor, the so-called Top Drive, has failed, explained Piotr Długosz, the borehole designer and geological supervisor. Work on the borehole is to be resumed on August 20. Due to the suspension of drilling, the deadline for completion of the work has been significantly extended. The exact date of completion of the work is not yet known.
Initially, it was assumed that drilling at a depth of approximately 7 km would be completed by mid-2024 – the Szaflary commune office explained. However, work has already been suspended once. In April, at a depth of 5,900 meters, very hard rock formations were encountered. Work resumed at the end of June.
The deepest geothermal borehole in the world is being drilled in Szaflary
The official and ceremonial start of drilling work on the deepest geothermal well in the world, the research and exploitation well Bańska PGP-4 in Szaflary, took place in April 2023. – We want to launch the first geothermal power plant in Poland, and for this we need to obtain water with a temperature of approx. 160 degrees Celsius. We already know that at a depth of approx. 3.5 km, the water reaches a temperature of approx. 85 to approx. 90 degrees Celsius – said the mayor of the Szaflary commune, Rafał Szkaradziński, quoted by szaflary.pl.
Hot geothermal water will be used mainly for heating buildings in the Szaflary and Nowy Targ communes. The total investment cost is PLN 132 million. The works are financed in full by the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management (NFOŚiGW).