A weekly brief on the public record of
St. Kitts and Nevis · Basseterre
Futures · Nevis · 2024-12-30
CDB commits $17 million to Nevis geothermal production drilling
The Caribbean Development Bank announced on 30 December a $17 million commitment through its GeoSmart Initiative toward geothermal production drilling on Nevis. The commitment is stated as a figure and a channel. The announcement does not state the currency, and it does not state whether the money is a grant, a concessional loan, or a blend of the two. It states no disbursement schedule, names no drilling contractor, and gives no date for first production drilling. It states no counterpart funding requirement, and no source available to Newsful says whether any counterpart appears in the $273.17 million Nevis budget announced on 3 January. A 100 percent renewable energy generation target is referenced in the material without a date and without attribution to a published policy. Forbes published a feature on the Nevis geothermal programme in the same period; Newsful has not independently confirmed its contents, and the summary available to Newsful quotes no named Nevis official, developer, or regulator. As of 5 January no environmental impact assessment, drilling site, or land tenure detail for the drilling has been published in that material.
Still unanswered
instrument type and currency of $17m commitment unstated as of 5 January
Horizon · 2 items
- Caribbean Development Bank procurement notice naming a drilling contractor for Nevis
- Nevis 2025 Estimates, for any counterpart funding line against the GeoSmart commitment
This happened before
2018 · Nevis
Nevis Renewable Energy International drilled and tested the N-4 exploratory geothermal well at Hamilton Estate in March 2018, confirming a commercial geothermal resource with bottom-hole temperatures exceeding 246 degrees Celsius.
A major development commitment for production drilling is announced without acknowledging the baseline of physical drilling already completed. The current 17 million dollar commitment treats the resource as a new horizon rather than a site where exploratory wells have already been successfully drilled and tested.
The 2018 test well confirmed the resource but did not lead to the promised power plant, leaving the island's energy transition waiting on subsequent rounds of financing to convert proven heat into public power.
mygeoenergynow.org / Stacey et al., 2018-03-18, This paper presents the results of the N-4 well drilled on the Hamilton Estate on the island of Nevis. The well was drilled to 3,154 ft-MD and confirmed the presence of a commercial geothermal resource.
Source for this item
- Caribbean Development Bank, 2024-12-30