Contact, Geo40 partner with Maori on world-leading energy project

(19 July 2018) - Geo40, in cooperation with Contact Energy and the Ngati Tahu Tribal Lands Trust, is this month set to start commercially extracting silica from geothermal fluid as part of a world-leading sustainable energy partnership.

The operation will see Geo40 use its technology to extract silica from geothermal fluid used at Contact’s Ohaaki power station.

Once extracted, the silica will be sold to manufacturers for use in everyday consumer goods, such as paint, providing an environmentally-sound source of silica that would otherwise require amounts of carbon-intensive energy to make. The potential volume of high grade silica that will be sourced from Ohaaki is up to 10,500 tonnes a year, most of which will be exported overseas.