Geothermal drilling in Konskie, Poland encounters permeability issues
Geothermal drilling in Konskie, Poland has been completed, but results have not reached expectations as the well penetrated an impermeable clay formation.
Drilling of a geothermal exploration well in the city of Konskie in Poland has come to a disappointing conclusion – no commercially exploitable geothermal resources were found at a depth of 2260 meters. However, there remains a possibility of using the well by installing geothermal probes or coupling it with ground source heat pumps. The final report and expert recommendations are still being prepared.
Drilling of the Konskie GT-1 well officially started in November 2025. The project had a total cost of about PLN 16 million. Konskie was one of the communes selected to receive funding for geothermal exploration under the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management (NFOSiGW) in late 2024, bestowing the city with a PLN 13 million grant for the project. The goal for the drilling operations was to construct a well that will enable geothermal supply for district heating.
The drilling operations had an initial target depth of 2110 meters. Upon reaching 2160 meters, a decision was made to deepen it to 2260 meters. Unfortunately, the drill bit had struck the impermeable Opoczno clay formation at this depth, preventing the extraction of thermal waters at a commercial rate.
While the exact temperature and flowrate measurements have not been made public, the project team had initially declared the expected parameters of thermal waters from the well: temperatures at around 55 °C and flowrates of 100 m3/hour.
The project is still not considered a complete failure, as drilling cores were collected which would give valuable insight on the area’s subsurface geology. The well also remains cased, offering the future possibility of utilization with probes or geothermal heat pumps. Such a system has already been proposed elsewhere in Poland, specifically in the Sekowa project.
The hybrid approach in Sekowa involved the installation of a borehole heat exchanger and heat pumps, which were to be powered by a solar PV installation. However, this project had not yet been implemented as of the end of 2025.
Source: Telewizja Swietokrzyska and Konecki24