| Title | Geothermal Play Typing – the Development of a Modern Concept for Geothermal Resources Assessment |
|---|---|
| Authors | Inga S. Moeck |
| Year | 2018 |
| Conference | Asian Geothermal Symposium |
| Keywords | Geothermal plays, geological analogs, resources assessment, exploration chance, risk evaluation |
| Abstract | The Play Type is a common concept in the exploration for subsurface natural commodities. A play type describes the generic geological environment that might host an economic accumulation of the commodity. The identification of a certain play type has therefore implications for exploration and extraction strategies. In geothermal exploration, a systematic worldwide play type concept is recently published. The aim of geothermal play typing is to streamline the exploration process, to define the play risk, and the chances of reservoir discovery by appropriate targeting and exploration methods, which are ideally geosystem specific. However the play type concept needs further definitions and specifications to integrate geothermal plays into the assessment process for geothermal resources. A worldwide usable language for the geothermal assessment process missing so far. First attempts have been made on a geothermal play type workshop under the umbrella of the IEA-Geothermal meeting in Vienna in May 2018. The recent nucleus for systematic research and conceptional activities is the first research project on geothermal play types, the PlayType project in Germany, funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics (BMWi). The results of the Vienna workshop reveal the common interest in the geothermal play type concepts but also the lacking clear definitions and play sub-categories. Play based exploration as a goal of geothermal resources assessment can only be achieved by continuous efforts on an international level. |