Mexico's state power company CFE has received approval from environment and natural resources ministry Semarnat for its 25MW Cerritos Colorados geothermal project in Jalisco state's Primavera forest.
"Based on that, we are going to review the areas to find out what specific activities are needed to do the evaluation of the field and of the infrastructure CFE has installed there," CFE Primavera geothermal department head Felipe Rodrigo told BNamericas.
CFE began exploring the field at the end of the 1970s and drilled 13 wells, of which seven were productive. However, the project was suspended in 1989 due to environmental degradation.
Data from 1989 was used to develop the 25MW project's MIA and as such, the company now needs to reevaluate the field to confirm steam conditions remain the same, Rodrigo said.
The current project will require: constructing a subtransmission line, 2.5km of steam pipelines and 3.5km of pipeline to reinject residual water from geothermal fluid; drilling nine new production wells and five new injector wells; rehabilitating four existing wells; and modifying 250m of existing roads.
But because the project was approved so late in the year, the bulk of the works are not included in CFE's 2009 budget, Rodrigo said.
Some aspects of the Cerritos Colorados project are included in the 2009 budget, "but not the heavy work such as the drilling of wells, construction of the subtransmission line and the construction of the generation unit. I think that will begin if not at the end of next year, at the beginning of the following year," Rodrigo said.
As such, CFE could launch project tenders in the middle or end of 2009.
The company developed an EIA last year for a 70MW project in the area that Semarnat rejected.
The 25MW project is thus CFE's first stage of planned development for Cerritos Colorados. CFE could submit a separate proposal to expand the project by 50MW.
The Primavera forest is an environmentally protected zone just west of state capital Guadalajara.
No comments:
Post a Comment