Attempts to Create a Deeper Reservoir, Redrilling of EE-3, and Completion of the Phase II Reservoir

With the very difficult task of directionally drilling the lower portions of the EE-2 and EE-3 boreholes complete, in early 1982 the critical next step in the development of the Phase II reservoir began. Recall that at this time, the theory that a penny-shaped, vertical hydraulic fracture could be created in jointed basement rock still held sway with the HDR Project management (although many of the Project staff had by then abandoned it). This, of course, was why the lower portions of EE-2 and EE-3 had been inclined 35° from the vertical by costly and time-consuming directional drilling, with EE-3 terminating about 1,200 ft vertically above EE-2. Mort Smith, in his Abstract for the 1982 Annual Report (HDR 1983b), stated that “During Fiscal 1982, emphasis in the Hot Dry Rock Program was on development of methods to produce the hydraulic fractures required to connect the deep, inclined wells of the Phase II system at Fenton Hill.”