Geothermal didn't fail on physics. It failed on cost per metre.
Magness drills hard rock faster. A patented dual-circulation water-hammer system, built on a decade of hard-rock drilling in Western Australia.
Up to 70% hard-rock drilling cost reduction in the current operating envelope.
Hard rock, cheaper by the metre.
Hot rock sits under most of this continent.
Nobody disputes the resource. Getting to it is what breaks the economics.
Conventional rotary drilling grinds in granite, and slow is expensive. Past the first two kilometres the cost curve goes vertical, and the project dies on a spreadsheet before it dies in the field.
Twenty years of Australian geothermal ended in that gap. Not on the heat. On the hole.
Percussion, not rotary.
A hammer breaks rock. A rotary bit wears it away. In hard rock the hammer wins, and it has for a century, but nobody has taken one deep enough to matter.
The Magness system runs a patented dual-circulation water hammer, controlled by the Fluid Hammer Operating System. Higher penetration rate in granite, cleaner hole, less time on bottom.
Fervo Energy did this with shale rock drilling tech. We are doing it with the right tool in hard rock.
The unit we sell is cost per metre. Everything else is downstream of that number.
The physics is done. The repeatable depth is the work in front of us.
We drilled air percussion to 4,520 metres in Finnish granite. Twice.
Then we spent ten years on the harder problem, which is doing it at the right price.
The dual-circulation water hammer is field proven and about to be deployed. TRL 7.
What is still in front of us is repetition. Not whether the hole can be drilled, but whether it can be drilled again and again at the price. A proving well at Poole in October 2026, then commercial wells in Western Australia in early 2027.
Three Western Australian developers want holes drilled.
North West. A twelve-well gradient testing programme next year, with a future need of 50 or more wells at depth.
Mid West. Two validation wells first, one sedimentary and one hard rock, with 70 or more production wells behind them at target plant size.
South West. Letter of intent signed. Not ready to drill yet, and wants the service when they are.
Between them, that is every deep geothermal developer in the state.
Counterparties are described by region until the agreements are signed. Names on request.
We take shares, not day rates.
Magness owns the rig. Developers pay a set price per metre, converted into shares at a discount to market.
The money goes into the ground rather than into another company's overheads. And when something breaks on our rig, the cost sits with us. There is no invoice to defend for a day we lost.
It is research drilling on someone else's tenement, and we get paid in upside.
A small team, close to the rock.
Brad Hill. Founder. Ten years building the Western Australian percussion programme.
Neil Kavanagh. Woodside's former chief scientist, now ours. A lifetime at the forefront of drilling and energy technology.
The engineers. One wrote the software most other drillers train on. One has been building drill rigs for 40 years. One has spent his entire career getting water hammers to work.
Operating base is regional Western Australia, which is where the rock is.
Not hiring this quarter. Always keen to hear from the right people.
If you want us to drill, are keen to invest or want to build here, write to us.
