Vallourec S.A.

Good morning. Welcome to today's webcast, Leveraging Oil and Gas Expertise to Enhance Geothermal Projects Worldwide. I'm Maddie McCarty, Senior Digital Editor of World Oil, and I will be your moderator today. Geothermal operators are facing several technical challenges that need to be tackled to ensure that geothermal wells are reliable in the long run and optimized in terms of heat supply efficiency. The premium solution, material, grades, and services that have been used for decades in oil and gas activities show promising results in enhancing geothermal wells reliability and performance. However, specific evaluations need to be performed to guarantee their compatibility. In this webcast, Maximilian de Maisonneuve and Francois Penvin, in charge of geothermal at Valerix, will introduce how available technologies at Valerix can help geothermal operators meet challenging scenarios as well as to ensure their product cost effectiveness. These solutions will be illustrated by some real business cases. Finally, the speakers will also shed some light on what the future of tubular solutions could look like for the next generation of geothermal wells. Maximilian de Maisonneuve is a mechanical engineer graduated from the ECAM Engineering School in France in 1998. Maximilian worked in the automotive industry as plant manager for seven years before joining Valeric in 2005, where he has held several positions, such as corporate controller, controlling superintendent Brazil, VP sales for Europe-Africa, and global VP sales for the drilling products division. He was recently general manager for Valeric in Canada before moving to the new energies team as geothermal director in 2021. Francois Penbin is a mechanical engineer graduated from the NSAM Engineering School in France in 1999. Francois worked in the automotive industry as quality engineer for seven years before joining Valeric in 2007 as VAM services auditor to support the VAM licensing network. After two positions as technical sales manager for OCTG Products in Africa and later on in Aberdeen for North Sea HPHT Wealth, Francois became global product leader for BAM21 Premium Connections as well as for anti-corrosion grade CRA, 13CR, and GRE. Francois is now the marketing and development manager for geothermal solutions at Valeric. Just some general housekeeping notes before we get started. Following the presentation, we'll have a short question and answer session. You can participate in the Q&A session by asking questions at any time during the presentation. Just type your question into the Q&A box located on the bottom left corner of your screen, then click the submit button. Please take this time to familiarize yourself with the webinar platform. At the bottom of your screen, there are multiple application widgets you can use. All the widgets are resizable and movable, so feel free to move them around to get the most out of your desktop space. You can expand your slide area or maximize it to full screen by clicking on the arrows in the top right corner. The slides will advance automatically throughout the event. If you're experiencing problems with the program, please press F5 on your keyboard to refresh the presentation. You can also visit the webcast help guide by clicking on the help button below the slide window. Now let's get started.

Thank you very much, Maddy. Good evening, good afternoon, and good morning, everyone. Today's presentation is about how Valorec, an historical oil and gas solution provider, is making our tubular development and manufacturing expertise available to solve some geothermal challenges. We will detail the benefits and the challenge of this fantastic but clearly underdeveloped renewable energy. Francois will then explain how a better material selection helps to extend well life. Then how our products are qualified to resist the hottest environment and enhance geothermal projects pushing the current boundaries of conventional geothermal. Finally, we will discuss the need for a new solution for the geothermal to make it not location specific so valorec is a seamless pipe manufacturer present on all the continents with several production hubs brazil us china and europe and finishing plants in places like indonesia mexico and saudi valorec is also a vertically integrated which contribute to our global quality process control. ValorWack is also deeply investing in R&D with 500 people, working in five different research centers. That includes a testing facility where we design and qualify our premium connection, where we develop and validate our propriety still great up to the most stringent standard. thanks to our metallurgists and their expertise in corrosion, NDT, etc. Regarding the geothermal market, Valorec has been supplying actively international projects for decades now all over the world. So, regarding geothermal energy benefits, it's clearly one of the Most promising renewable energy, it is a clean, safe, silent source of energy, and it's been already used for over 100 years, starting in Italy. And it does require a very limited footprint, as most of the assets are underground. When plants are well designed and reservoir well operated, depending on the type of resources, it can produce heat. electricity, sometimes both, eventually minerals, and even to be used for cooling, and this during decades. And this is a constant production all year long and usually above 95% load factor. But despite all these benefits, unfortunately today for the planet, geothermal energy represents less than 1% of the world energy mix. and with huge discrepancy country by country. Now talking about the challenge for geothermal. As of today, it's still very challenging for an investor to start executing a geothermal project, especially when it's a new location. The first challenge is to make sure the resource is available. And it's a combination of three parameters. First, heat, but usually when you drill deeper, you find heat. Water, because water is needed to carry the heat, as convection is much more efficient than just convection. Porosity and permeability to guarantee that the fluid can travel between injection and production wells. But usually, the geothermal developer will know the if they can continue after the drill only a minimum of two wells. So it means high-capacity upfront before knowing if the project can go ahead. You need also to have the proper local regulation and the public acceptance to avoid legal delays. It's also important to control induced seismicity that can stop projects. And even when the project is executed and when the plant is running, operator still has to challenge to operate at the level of cost of energy, called LCOE, below the PPA, which means power purchase agreement, and this usually for 20 or even 30 years. For that, the main points are reservoir management to avoid the depletion of the resource and asset integrity. Now focusing a bit more on the geothermal wealth challenge and more specifically to the tubular linked to that. First, the need to maintain the production level. because the operating factor for the plant is key. You need to control also the equilibrium between the CAPEX and OPEX. And the main cost for OPEX are electricity you take from the plant for pumps or also inhibitors. That's the main OPEX. Usually, as those wells are drilled in a hot and corrosive environment, you need to make sure the wells exceed the lifetime of 20 or 30 years, as I was saying before. You need also to be in line with local regulation. and also achieve the industry standard to protect local environment and to also prevent accidents such as aquifer pollution or toxic gas release. What type of failure geothermal wells can face? First of them is definitely corrosion. What you can see on the top left that it can be sometimes extremely severe. It can be also associated with erosion, as you can see also on the right, when debris can definitely weaken pipes very rapidly. Wealth or flow integrity due to collapse, top right, or thermal expansion, when the pipes elongate. And also scaling, and you can see on the bottom left, can reduce the flow and so on the power plant operating factor. So these are really the factors that increase the risk of complete failure of the well and may oblige operators to do further drilling. And this is definitely the purpose to avoid those failure. We will discuss now with Francois.

Thanks, Maximilien. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everyone. As indicated, most operators are targeting a well lifetime of at least 20 years, and in many cases, the base hypothesis is 30 years. And for this purpose, they need to ensure that every single equipment fitted in the well can sustain the well condition for this duration. And the suppliers need to demonstrate the robustness of the solution to ensure long-term well integrity. in particular for the casing. So the casing fitted in the well need to sustain the well load both in terms of casing resistance but also in terms of connection resistance and this again for the entire lifetime of the well. Secondly, the material selected for the casing need to sustain the corrosive environment that is present in the well and we'll detail that in the next Slide. One key point to keep in mind is that the overall cost of the casing and the well equipment, the tubular equipment, only represent a few percent of the total cost of the geothermal project. Therefore, increasing by a few percent the cost of the tubulars can be beneficial in case it has a significant impact of the well lifetime. In summary, the right material to be fitted in the well need to be selected to optimize the levelized cost of energy and Valouret can support you on this. So in geothermal wells, the main point is that very hot fluid can circulate in the tubulars at elevated temperatures that can be up to 350 degrees Celsius. In some cases, potential presence of trapped water outside the casing or between the cement and the casing due to this high temperature can generate significant collapse load on the casing. And therefore, an inappropriate casing selection can lead to a casing failure. Some operators have reported that up to 15% of their wells have been affected by this collapse failure. And worst case, they had to abandon the well, which of course has a huge impact on their operations. OK, so our material grade includes high collapse grades in both carbon steel and certain chrome. The main benefit of using high collapse grade is to increase significantly the collapse rating of the pipe without adding any material, so any weight on the pipe. This is obtained thanks to a tight management of the pipe dimension, in particular the thickness, the eccentricity and the ovality, as well as a tight management of the yield strength value and the residual stresses in the pipe during the manufacturing processes. So high-collapse grades have already been used for decades in the oil and gas industry in various applications, such as high-collapse pressure to mitigate annulus pressure buildup, for example, in HPHT wells, as well as usage in salt dome formation, in particular in a pre-salt region in Brazil. So now let's take two examples corresponding to two very classical sizes used in geothermal wells. The 958, 47 pounds per foot, and the 1338, 68 pounds per foot. So in classical geothermal well architecture are mainly based on K55 or LAT material, which are sufficient to sustain most of the loads, but in some cases might not be enough to sustain the collapsed loads. In those two particular cases, as you can see on the chart, using higher yield strength and higher and high collapse material can increase the collapse rating of the pipe by up to 94% in the case of the 958 casing and by up to 53% in the case of the 13 and 38. So, in summary, using the high collapse grade can fix collapse issues. So, we'll now focus on a case study corresponding to one of our customers well designed in Germany. So, in this case, the customer required at least 2,000 PSI collapse rating on the 13-3-8 68 pf K55, and the K55 material could not reach this value. As shown on the slide, two different options were considered. On the left, keeping the same wall thickness, and changing the grade to VM110HC, which would have increased the collapse rating up to almost 3,000 PSI. The customer finally decided to select the option on the right, which consists in increasing the grade to a VM110HC grade and reducing the wall thickness to a pipe having a poundage of 61 pounds per foot. As a result, the required collapse rating was achieved. Secondly, the weight of the pipe was reduced by around 10%, which is positive for both operation, also for the cost. and to have a lighter string which is easier to operate during the installation in the well. Finally, this wall thickness reduction has also a tiny increase in terms of pipe section and fluid circulation. To be mentioned that on the collapse pipe having a collapse grade, our connections are also qualified for this collapse rating. Okay, so finally, to use high collapse grade is also selected by customers to increase the safety margin during their operations. I mean drilling operation to prevent unforeseen drilling issues such as casing wear, annulus pressure buildup, or any cementing issues that they can face. And increasing the safety margin gives them some confidence during the drilling operation. Okay, so let's now focus on another key aspect of the material selection, which is the material selection with regard to corrosion. The corrosive environment, which is present in the well with the fluid, will affect the pipe over time, and this can be detrimental as well. We can see here on the left side some key factors that affect the corrosion behavior of the material. In particular, the CO2 content, H2S content, chloride content of the fluid, the temperature of the well, of course, and the pH. To address this challenge, the solution proposed by Valorec is to evaluate the behavior of the material in the well conditions based on different things. Based on first theoretical evaluation of the pH and the corrosion mechanism using some dedicated software. Then we can also conduct some fit-for-purpose testing including NACE-C, NACE-A, mass loss testing evaluation, as well as resistance to pitting of the materials. The benefit of this approach is to select the good enough material to ensure both long-term resistance as well as cost efficiency. On this next slide, you can see the type of support that Valourec can provide to geothermal customers, which consists in Material selection based on the well condition. For this, as mentioned before, we consider bottom-hole temperature, bottom-hole pressure, wellhead temperature, wellhead pressure, and the different composition of the fluid, including temperature and pH. As a summary, a three-step approach is performed to use dedicated software to simulate what will happen in the well in this condition, comparison of customer condition with existing test results that we have in our database based on past results gathered thanks to our OCTG experience in oil and gas, but also more recently on other geothermal operations. And finally, we can offer and we can perform some fit for purpose testing of the material selected. Okay, on this last slide, you can see a summary of the VALOREC testing lab equipment and capabilities, which includes NACE-A, NACE-C, SSRT, and different other equipment that allow to perform corrosion testing at elevated temperature that have been used over the last 20 years to qualify material for high pressure and high temperature wells. Let's now focus on a case study that is corresponding to a material section performed for a customer in Northern Europe. As you can see, we have a material database that gather numerous corrosion testing results that allow us to have a mapping of corrosion resistance of our grade depending on different corrosion conditions. Again, considering CO2, partial pressure, H2S, chloride temperature, et cetera. On this slide, the blue dot represents the customer condition. And as you can see, this customer condition is covered by the testing done on this grade, which is, in this case, a Super 13 chrome material, which means that those corrosion conditions will be covered by the testing already done. So that is the first step. of evaluation, then this selection can be done, for example, for exploration wells. For the development wells, the customer will, in most of the case, try to optimize the material selection since they will know the exact well condition and eventually consider material with lower alloyed material with also a lower cost. So we have been talking about the requirements on pipe, on material. Let's now focus on connections. So the pipes are connected together with premium connections, which have been used over the last decades by our customers in oil and gas. Valourec has developed an extensive knowledge in terms of connection development, connection design, and connection testing. An example is the most recent VAM premium connection, such as, for example, VAM 21 and VAM SLLJ3. They have been tested as per the most severe testing protocols set by the industry, which is the API 5C5 2017 CAL4. And this involves testing up to 180 degrees Celsius and pressures, in most of the case, up to 10,000 PSI. Elrec has also an extensive experience in supporting customers for drilling of high-pressure, high-temperature wells, which involve higher temperature, which can go up to 240 degrees Celsius in some cases, as well as pressure, which can go up to 20,000 PSI. So the most common HPHT sizes used in the industry have been tested as per the API5C5 2017 Cal4 testing protocol with temperature up to 240 degrees Celsius. So we have a robust database on those connections which have been proven and used by numerous customers across the globe on HPHT-Wealth. On this graph, you can see that most of the geothermal wells that are being drilled right now and that will be drilled in the future have operating temperatures that exceed 200 degrees Celsius for around two-thirds of them and exceed 250 degrees Celsius for around half of them. For this purpose, Valourec needs to test connection to a higher level in terms of temperature, which has been done on the most common sizes used in geothermal industry. We have tested the connection as per the protocol called TWCCEP. Next. So some operators are now considering drilling geothermal wells involving temperature above 350 degrees Celsius and sometimes up to 450 degrees Celsius. So indeed, a well producing water at around 400 degrees Celsius can generate around 10 times more energy compared to a well at 200 degrees Celsius. This involves other challenges, both on the materials and on the connection. In particular, the severe temperature induced severe material yield strength dilating due to the temperature level, as well as significant dilatation involving significant casing displacement. VALOREC and R&D are already working on these new challenges for the geothermal industry, both on material and connection sites. So back on the TWCC-EP protocol. So this protocol is now considered to test all the casing used in geothermal wells. This protocol involves testing up to 350 degrees Celsius. As you can see on this chart, The test protocol involved around 10 thermocycles. The tests were performed on our casing up to 350 degrees Celsius. And as I mentioned, most of our classical sizes used in geothermal wells have been tested. OK. We, as an example, we really performed the TWCC testing on the 10 3 quarters 55.5 T95 van 21, which is classical sizes used in Southeast Asia. The testing was done at 350 degrees Celsius. So as a summary, Valourec has around 60 years of experience in terms of connection design, connection testing, and the connections have been used in the most severe environments, such as HPHT, deep water, extended drilling as well. We have now developed an optimized TWCC-EP testing protocol that allows us to optimize the test timing and the test cost. We also have some methods based on FEA, for example, to be able to extrapolate the qualification from the critical sizes which have been physically tested to the less critical sizes. And as an example, the VAM21 product line has been tested after TWCC protocol on the most severe sizes. You can see on the right side, One of the test bench that we have in our testing facility that can allow testing involving compression and tension loads up to 3,000 tons, pressure up to 20,000 PSI and above, and temperature so far up to 350 degrees Celsius. So I will now give the floor back to Maximilien, who will present our solution for closed-loop geothermal wells.

Thank you very much, François. So as explained before, geothermal is trying to solve its challenge by unlocking the real potential. The main challenge today is to be able to bring geothermal to more places. And one of the technologies that is today under validation is closed-loop geothermal or sometimes called advanced geothermal system. And this is removing the subsurface limitation or the risk. It enables geothermal virtually everywhere. as you just need to drill deep enough with no induced seismicity and it's also truly scalable. It's not affecting the resource because you are not extracting any fluid from the ground and some partners we've been working with are testing more efficient working fluids than water, like supercritical CO2 or ammonium. There are different configurations. The one here shown is the coaxial one, which is a single well setup. with some specific benefits. One is that you can retrofit existing wells, geothermal wells or oil and gas wells, that are not productive. Usually, in average, it's around 30% of the wells that are not productive with just a simple retrofit using this coaxial loop. and the installation can be done with relatively limited resources. It's also seen as a solution, especially from some oil and gas operators, to generate revenue from the depleted wealth and to also delay plug-in and abandonment costs for them. So how this is done today and how we've been been part of this development of these new technologies. So looking for an existing solution for their coaxial design, some tech company came to see us. And after doing together some simulation, they decided to use the Valorec Thermocase vacuum insulated tubing. So this is a pipe-in-pipe solution. with vacuum space between the two walls, with some multi-layer insulation and also activated gathers to ensure extended life. So this is a product that was developed decades ago, a long time ago, and initially used in Northern Europe for flow insurance, then in thermal and steam wells. And today, closed loop is a new application for this product. So selecting this product was clear for those companies, as it brings several operational benefits. You can run it as a tubing, so no need for specific tools for installation. It is field-proven and durable. And this is really the, I mean, the the product to avoid heat loss when you bring the heat to the surface. And it's also quite recognized for the insulation performance. It has been there for years. Now, the new challenge for those advanced geothermal systems in order to unlock the potential is to make sure you reduce heat loss to the minimum. It's valid for a closed loop, but it's also valid for an enhanced geothermal system called EGS. As you can with this solution, improve the overall performance of the project and limit the drilling cost. That's why Valrec decided to expand the product range, which for oil and gas was quite limited to tubing sizes, to now up to 16 inch to enable this insulation. More specifically to coaxial closed loop, This is really the case where you need this insulation between the hot and the cold flows for each loop, up and down or hot and cold, to maximize the heat. Especially in case of retrofit, we are trying to optimize the design of this product to definitely fit the best to the existing well configuration. So thanks to this product, coaxial systems have been built and already tested in the US and in Asia in the last two years. And there are also some ongoing projects today in California. Before we try to answer to all your questions, you see our contact details. So feel free to reach out, François or myself, or your Valorec local rep to discuss about your challenge and how we could help solving those challenges.

OK, thank you so much for that presentation. We will now transition to the question and answer portion of our webcast. You can continue to submit your questions in the Q&A box located on the bottom left corner of your screen. Now let's start with our first question. Did you modify your connections before testing them to the TWCCEP protocol?

Okay, thanks for this question. I will take the question, Francois speaking. So the connection design has not been changed. So meaning that when we mentioned that we are testing VAM21 for geothermal application under the TWCCP protocol, we have tested the exact same connection design as the one currently used in oil and gas. I think that's important towards different aspects. First, because some customers already have a stock of the product. Some stocks are available on the market. And it's important to ensure the compatibility of the product used in geothermal wells with some existing products already available in customer yards or all that customer already owns? And we can develop this question with a request, of course.

So with more details. Thanks. Just one more detail. We were aware that some customer used our product in such high temperature, 350 and sometimes above, the purpose of going through this qualification was definitely to be able to give a warranty to our customer that they are safe using a qualified product.

Okay, thank you. Our next question is, what is the benefit of trying to reach higher temperatures above 250 degrees Celsius when you said it makes everything more complicated?

So the reason why operators want to reach the maximum temperature is the higher you go, it makes electricity, first electricity generation possible, and the higher the efficiency you will get. So you will get the higher enthalpy brought to the surface, so it means higher power for your plant. It's clearly more complicated, but it's where you get the maximum benefit and the lower cost per megawatt in your operation.

Okay, thank you. Our next question is, is Valeric open to partnerships or collaborating on technologies you don't provide now?

Yes, thank you. That's a good question. For sure, we are definitely open. Valorec has been involved in new energy like geothermal, but also carbon capture and hydrogen now for several years. And we try definitely to be partnering with the maximum companies to make those technologies progress. So definitely, yes.

OK, excellent. Our next question, how are you modeling and testing the integrity of the annular materials used for these applications?

OK, so I take this question. So first, the important input is to assess the loads that are applied on the casing in the well. That's the job of the drilling engineer. dedicated software for that purpose, such as Wildcat and other software. our activity at Valway is to test the products to ensure that those products will sustain the loads. So those testing involve different aspects. So first, on the pipe itself, we performed some collapse tests on the high collapse pipe, for example. We performed some mechanical testing on all the pipes that we are manufacturing, that's on the pipe side then and we have speaking about high collapse rating we have some models to evaluate the collapse rating of a pipe depending on the various geometrical aspects of the pipe that's one part secondly on the connections As we explained a bit during the presentation, we are performing some connection testing as per the industry test protocol, which involves loading the connection to different load cycles that are defined by the norm. Basically, we load the connection around the whole von Mises ellipse. And at a different level of temperature, this again as per the norm, which is 180 for normal connections. And we can go above if required for a given application.

OK, thank you. Our next question is, how do these wells differ in their requirements with other long production wells, like offshore deep water wells?

So can you say again the question? Sorry.

Yes, it is. How do these wells differ in their requirements with other long production wells, such as offshore and deep water wells?

Okay, so I think we can list different key differences. I think first one difference is that the temperatures, as we mentioned, are not the same. Most of the oil and gas wells have temperatures below 180 degrees Celsius, and I would say even most of them below 150 degrees Celsius. In geothermal, we go far above that, up to 350 degrees Celsius. In some countries such as Indonesia, USA, California, or Iceland, the temperature is common to be up to 300 or 350. That's one main difference. Another difference is that the fluids involved are not the same, meaning that the fluids in geothermal is primarily water, but water containing different things mixed to it, such as chloride and so on. And the testing conditions of this water mixed with other chemicals are not exactly the same as for oil and gas wells. So this means that we have to to assess the product under different conditions, also on the corrosion resistance perspective.

OK, very good. Thank you. Our next question is, can the watered-out oil and gas wells be used for geothermal energy?

So I'll take the question. Some tests have been done already in the US to reuse some oil and gas wells, trying to circulate some fluids between two wells or three wells. So that's for, I would say, the conventional geothermal. And now regarding installing closed-loop coaxial in oil and gas. You barely need water at the bottom. You just have to install the heat exchanger at the bottom to retrofit your oil and gas well. Now the topic is to get enough power or enough heat out of the well to make it economically viable, as we describe always this equation.

Okay, thank you very much. Our next question is about case study two. And it says, in your case study two, by changing to higher YF material, was there any impact on the corrosion resistance during the life of the well?

Yes. So in fact, the key point to be considered is that You cannot select the material on the corrosion side and on the mechanical side separately. You have to consider the whole conditions and the whole point. And for sure, increasing the yield strength may have an impact on the corrosion resistance of the material, in particular when there is some H2S in the fluid. That's particularly the case in the oil and gas well. For that purpose, in the oil and gas well, we also have some grades called high collapse, with high collapse performances combined with our service performances, which are called HCSS grades. So the answer is yes, we need to consider both the mechanical aspect and the corrosion resistant aspect to evaluate suitability of a given material for a well.

Okay, thank you. Our next question, it starts with thanking you for an excellent presentation. And then it says, do the high collapse rating casings show also higher corrosion resistance?

So can you – I didn't get this – Can you repeat the question? Sorry.

Yes. It says, does the high collapse rating casing show also higher corrosion resistance?

Not necessarily. Meaning for a given material yield strength, having a high collapse resistance doesn't affect the corrosion resistance. It's two separate topics.

OK. Thank you. We'll move on to our next question, and that is, aside from collapse resistance and corrosion, what, if any, well integrity issues are of concern in geothermal wells?

So what are the other well integrity issues is the question. So in fact, other type of well integrity issue can be linked in geothermal wells and can be linked to a huge level of tension and compression involved, meaning that since the pipe are in most of the geothermal wells, the pipe are cemented. which means that when the hot fluid is circulating, it induces some high level of tension, meaning that we have to ensure the casing and the connections are designed to sustain this level of tension. As an example, the VAM21 connection is rated 100% in compression, meaning it has a high level of resistance in compression. Another aspect is that high temperature involves also high level of dilatation. So it means the material expands and the length of the casing will increase, considering, will increase due to the high level of temperature. And this is also an aspect that the geothermal operators need to consider, in particular in geothermal wells having a high level of temperature, meaning in particular above 250, 300 degrees Celsius.

Okay, thank you so much. Our next question is, is Valorant conducting the WellCat analysis for VIP applications or just providing case factors?

So our team are definitely performing the WellCat analysis using WellCat software. Also, we are doing some correlation with some internal software the team developed along the years. But we are not just providing the key factor. We try to see the combination and the configuration of the product and then simulate the heat exchange using WellCap.

Okay, thank you. We're getting many great questions. Remember, you can continue. bottom left corner of your screen. And now let's go to our next question. That is, will these materials be made available in coupling stock dimensions for making products like liner hangers and packers?

The answer is yes. So first, answering about the coupling stock. So of course, the coupling material used to manufacture the coupling is the same, has the same performances and the same chemistry as the material used to manufacture the casing. So meaning they are manufactured after the same quality plants. To answer about the coupling, and we value can also provide some coupling stock material so either the same coupling stock as the one that we use to manufacture the couplings in our own mill to suppliers that are manufacturing accessories such as you mentioned liner hangers or packers or some other equipment such as crossover and so on. So we also have the capability to manufacture a limited number of pipes with even, in some case, a higher, let's say, secure material to manufacture accessories. Benefit for the customer is that they have the same chemistry in the material used for the accessories to the one used for the casing. So it means all the validation has been done on the casing material are also valid for the accessories? So answer is yes. And our team can discuss this point with the operator and with the accessory manufacturer.

OK, great. Thank you. Our next question, what is the smallest internal diameter necessary to run BIP?

I think it is a 5-inch, if I'm not wrong. The smallest VIT we can manufacture is a 2 and 1 half outer pipe with a 2 and 3 8 inner pipe. So I would say 5 or 5 and 1 half inch ID. But we can answer this question. Just contact our team. be more precise on these dimensions.

OK, very good. Our next question, are flush joint connects common for geothermal? Given the large diameter needs, it seems logical.

So of course. So far, I would say that TNT, threaded and coupled connectors, are the most used in geothermal wells. However, as we mentioned in the presentation, we also have a range of integral joints. including, for example, SLI-J2, SLI-J3, that are mostly used in the USA, for example, and in North America. We can, of course, consider those joints for geothermal application. So far, the validation as per TWCCP have been done mainly on TNC, threaded and coupled connector, but integral joint can be considered.

OK, thank you. Next question. Why CO2 or NH3 was mentioned better circulation fluids than water?

So supercritical CO2 and ammonia have a better capacity to carry heat. And also the boiling point, if I'm not wrong, is lower. So you can use it in a sea plant as a better fluid. than water, where you need to be above 120 degrees to start operate ORC plants. So that's the reason why they are testing these type of fluids.

OK, that makes sense. Thank you. Our next question. Is there a temperature above which VIP may start exhibiting some loss of heat insulation performance?

That's a good question. I'm not sure we have tested the limit, but it's a good question we take and we try to answer.

Okay, thank you. We'll go to our next question. How often do closed-loop wells require maintenance, such as workovers, and which part of the system is most likely to need this maintenance?

So if you consider the closed loop, the coaxial closed loop, everything that is inside the casing and all the VAT is in a controlled environment. Okay, it's a hot environment. But it's a clean fluid. You have no debris. So this part has much less maintenance than normal geothermal waste, because you have no scaling, no corrosion, or stuff like this, or collapse. What is today at risk more in this is the external part of the casing. That would be in open hole. So this is a part of the system that may require some inhibitor injection and so on. But again, the rest is protected by the design of the closed loop.

Okay, thank you. It looks like we have time for a couple more questions. So one of those will be, how are you planning to address the six cyclic nature of loads. For example, repeated cycles of hot production, shut-in, and even cold quenching of the wells.

OK. So on this question, so I think this question applies primarily to connections. The answer is that basically the connection testing protocols involve numerous cycles, both cycles in terms of loading, but also thermo cycles. So that's one part of the answer. Depending on customer usage, we may consider adding some testing to this. But the API5C5 testing protocol, for example, as well as the CWCCP protocol already includes numerous cycles in terms of load and puncture.

OK, thank you so much. And it looks like we have time for just one more question. And that is, what is the highest temperature geothermal well in BALRC track record?

OK, so based on the information we have and the exchange we have with our customer, I would say that the maximum temperature to which our tubulars and connections have been used are around 300, between 330 and 350 degrees Celsius. We have heard as well that some other customers have used the products slightly above, but not much higher than 360 degrees Celsius.

Okay, thank you. And we would like to thank you all for attending today's webcast. We would also like to thank Valerik for putting together this timely and informative presentation. Finally, an on-demand version of this webcast will be made available in the coming days and will be emailed to everyone. Thank you and have a good day.

Thank you very much. Thank you.