Numerical simulation studies of gas production scenarios from hydrate accumulations at the Mallik site

• Main Authors: George J Moridis, Timothy S Collett, Scott R Dallimore, Tohru Satoh, Stephen Hancock, Brian Weatherill
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2003
• Subjects: Canada; Mackenzie Delta; Northwest Territories; Methane hydrate; permafrost
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.1074.2374

The Mallik site represents an onshore permafrost-associated gas hydrate accumulation in the Mackenzie Delta, Northwest Territories, Canada. An 1150 m deep gas hydrate research well was drilled at the site in 1998. The objective of this study is the analysis of various gas production scenarios from several gas-hydrate-bearing zones at the Mallik site. The TOUGH2 general-purpose simulator with the EOSHYDR2 module were used for the analysis. EOSHYDR2 is designed to model the non-isothermal CH 4 (methane) release, phase behavior and flow under conditions typical of methane-hydrate deposits by solving the coupled equations of mass and heat balance, and can describe any combination of gas hydrate dissociation mechanisms. Numerical simulations indicated that significant gas hydrate production at the Mallik site was possible by drawing down the pressure on a thin free-gas zone at the base of the hydrate stability field. Gas hydrate zones with underlying aquifers yielded significant gas production entirely from dissociated gas hydrate, but large amounts of produced water. Lithologically isolated gas-hydrate-bearing reservoirs with no underlying free gas or water zones, and gas-hydrate saturations of at least 50% were also studied. In these cases, it was assumed that thermal stimulation by circulating hot water in the well was the method used to induce dissociation. Sensitivity studies indicated that the methane release from the hydrate accumulations increases with gas-hydrate saturation, the initial formation temperature, the temperature of the circulating water in the well, and the formation thermal conductivity. Methane production appears to be less sensitive to the rock and hydrate specific heat and permeability of the formation.