Detection and Production of Methane Hydrate

• Main Authors: George Hirasaki, Walter Chapman, Gerald Dickens, Colin Zelt, Brandon Dugan, Kishore Mohanty, Priyank Jaiswal
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: 03 NATURAL GAS; CLIMATES; DETECTION; DISTRIBUTION; DRILLING; ECONOMICS; EXPLORATION; GAS HYDRATES; HYDRATES; HYDROCARBONS; NATURAL GAS; PERMAFROST; PERMEABILITY; PRODUCTION; SAFETY; SEDIMENTS; STABILITY; TARGETS; Methane hydrate; permafrost
• Online Access: http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1043242; https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1043242; https://doi.org/10.2172/1043242

This project seeks to understand regional differences in gas hydrate systems from the perspective of as an energy resource, geohazard, and long-term climate influence. Specifically, the effort will: (1) collect data and conceptual models that targets causes of gas hydrate variance, (2) construct numerical models that explain and predict regional-scale gas hydrate differences in 2-dimensions with minimal 'free parameters', (3) simulate hydrocarbon production from various gas hydrate systems to establish promising resource characteristics, (4) perturb different gas hydrate systems to assess potential impacts of hot fluids on seafloor stability and well stability, and (5) develop geophysical approaches that enable remote quantification of gas hydrate heterogeneities so that they can be characterized with minimal costly drilling. Our integrated program takes advantage of the fact that we have a close working team comprised of experts in distinct disciplines. The expected outcomes of this project are improved exploration and production technology for production of natural gas from methane hydrates and improved safety through understanding of seafloor and well bore stability in the presence of hydrates. The scope of this project was to more fully characterize, understand, and appreciate fundamental differences in the amount and distribution of gas hydrate and how this would affect the production potential of a hydrate accumulation in the marine environment. The effort combines existing information from locations in the ocean that are dominated by low permeability sediments with small amounts of high permeability sediments, one permafrost location where extensive hydrates exist in reservoir quality rocks and other locations deemed by mutual agreement of DOE and Rice to be appropriate. The initial ocean locations were Blake Ridge, Hydrate Ridge, Peru Margin and GOM. The permafrost location was Mallik. Although the ultimate goal of the project was to understand processes that control production potential of hydrates in ...