Nabors Industries added to its clean energy portfolio with an $8 million investment in geothermal technology company GA Drilling.
GA Drilling is a pioneer in plasma drilling. By integrating its iPLASMABIT drilling tool into Nabors’ automated and lower-emission drilling operations, the collaboration aims to accelerate field commercialization and eliminate traditional economic barriers of ultradeep projects to expand global access to geothermal energy. This agreement complements the pre-series investment round recently concluded by GA Drilling, with the total value of those new investments exceeding $20 million.
GA Drilling joins Nabors’ geothermal ecosystem, which is comprised of three other prior venture investments in geothermal companies. These technologies were purposefully assembled to help make geothermal energy widely accessible across geographies, while reducing cost per unit of energy generated to match the cost of other energy sources.
“Now is the time to invest in innovative and bold geothermal solutions that have the potential to unlock terawatts of clean, renewable and reliable energy on a truly global scale. Given the expected sharp growth in global energy consumption over the next decades, the world will require an even sharper growth in sustainable energy supply. I am convinced that geothermal energy will be a key contributor to the necessary increase in clean energy generation. We look forward to leveraging the GA Drilling Centre of Excellence and integrating their technologies into our ecosystem,” said Anthony G. Petrello, Nabors Chairman, CEO and President.
“We welcome Nabors not only as an investor but also as a strategic partner. The present agreement will allow us to move faster through the final stages of PLASMABIT development, leveraging the synergies to integrate this revolutionary drilling tool into the systems of the rig. Nabors will introduce European high-technology capacities into the US market. Together, we will work toward meeting imminent demand to rapidly diversify the global energy mix,” said Igor Kočiš, Founder and CEO of GA Drilling.