Gonezu Energy has been working with the Naha Dehé Dene Band, one of the Dehcho First Nation communities, since 2020 for this project. The first phase of the the project involved securing funding from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program. For the next phase, Gonezu Energy is working with Terrapin Geothermics Inc. (Terrapin) to confirm the region’s geothermal potential.
The Government of NWT currently has plans to decommission and abandon oil wells southeast of Nahanni Butte in the Cameron Hills area. Terrapin is planning to run temperature logs and gamma logs on these wells before they are plugged and abandoned. This will help in better characterizing any potential geothermal resources in the region.
“The role that Gonezu Energy is playing in this is to provide information to the Indigenous governments so that they are aware of the resources on their land,” said Gonezu Energy CEO Jason Collard. The governments can then make better-informed decisions on how to tap the resource.
The research study is expected to take about a year. When this is completed, the findings will be accessible to everyone. Once the data is available, the Indigenous and community governments can decide whether to proceed to a feasibility study.
Kele Antoine, the chief of Liidlii Kue First Nation (LKFN), has expressed support for the project. “If we are sitting on the largest geothermal anomaly in Canada, we should at least be trying to see what we can do with it,” said Antoine.
