| Title | A Standard, Reliable Framework to Classify, Categorize and Disclose Each Stage of a Geothermal Project and Thermal Energy Resource |
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| Authors | G. Banks, S. Gardner, P. Ball |
| Year | 2026 |
| Conference | World Geothermal Congress |
| Keywords | |
| Abstract | To improve and rapidly deploy geothermal energy production, the geothermal industry needs a global, standardized method to characterize and communicate a project’s commercial risks and technical uncertainties, for regulators, investors, executives, and other stakeholders. Geothermal experts need to clearly convey how uncertainty and financial risk are reduced at each technical and commercial readiness stage of a project, whilst the geological and commercial chance of success, and expected value, increase. There is not a universally accepted method to provide such transparency to capital and insurance stakeholders when they assess and compare geothermal projects. The petroleum industry has a standardized and globally accepted framework, refined over decades of practical application, to: (a) Describe and classify the geological and commercial maturity, and the technical uncertainty, at each project stage. (b) Classify and categorize a resource from Undiscovered to Proven Reserves. (c) Transparently disclose Resources and Reserves to stakeholders using clearly defined terms and categories. Our presentation will: 1.Present the pros and cons of four geothermal resource reporting methods (Australian, Canadian, United Nations, U.S. Geological Survey) and the global standard for petroleum resource reporting (the SPE Petroleum Resource Management System (PRMS)) from the perspectives of exploration geoscience-engineering and independent Resource/Reserves evaluation. 2.Summarize the need to disclose a geothermal project’s: range of uncertainty, probability of commerciality, risk, cash-flow forecasts, resource volume, recovery factor, resource replenishment rates, resource decline rates, expected value, return on invested capital, etc. 3.Advocate for a Geothermal Resource Management System to be created that is akin to the PRMS. |