The Mt. Ida project is located in Çanakkale Province, Turkey, near the Village of Tuzla. Yerka Elektrik Üretim A.Ş. (“Yerka”) began geothermal resource exploration activities in 2013 with the drilling of two intermediate-depth wells, followed by geological and geophysical surveying in 2014-2015.

Since 2014, GeothermEx has supported Yerka with resource evaluation and guidance on development and drilling-risk reduction for the Mt. Ida project. Since 2016, Yerka has successfully drilled six deep wells. Well testing indicates that the project has sufficient production and injection capacity for a geothermal plant with an estimated capacity of 12 MW gross and a planned commercial operation date in the summer of 2019.

This paper describes drilling and testing results that have allowed detailed characterization of the Mt. Ida geothermal resource. The reservoir is primarily in fractured marble formations. The production wells yield brine with a mass-weighted average temperature of 127°C and a salinity of approximately 50,000 parts per million. Non-condensable gas concentrations are in the range of 0.5% to 0.6% by weight in total flow. The wells have shown significant benefits from acid stimulations through coiled tubing, with Productivity Indices post-acid ranging from 21 to 139 tons/hour per bar. Pressure interference testing shows that the entire wellfield is interconnected, which is beneficial from the perspective of maintaining pressure support by injection. However, the interference is low enough that thermal breakthrough by injection should not be a concern. The use of electric submersible pumps is planned to boost production rates and provide a greater measure of operational control.