Author Topic: Doe drills methane hydrate test well on Alaska’s North Slope  (Read 1264 times)

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Offline thackney

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Doe drills methane hydrate test well on Alaska’s North Slope
http://www.kallanishenergy.com/2019/01/25/doe-drills-methane-hydrate-test-well-on-alaskas-north-slope/

The Department of Energy and its international partners have successfully drilled a natural gas hydrate test well in Alaska, Kallanish Energy reports.

The well was drilled and logged at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska’s North Slope.

The results showed two gas hydrate reservoirs suitable for future testing, the federal agency reported.

The initial well was completed with temperature- and acoustic-monitoring devices in place that will allow it to serve as a monitoring well for any future field experiments.

The announcement came Wednesday from Doe and the National Energy Technology Laboratory. Partners on the project are the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp., the U.S. Geological Survey and Petrotechnical Resources-Alaska, in cooperation with Prudhoe Bay unitholders.

“The success of this test moves us closer to characterizing, evaluating and confirming the potential for gas hydrates production on the North Slope,” said Steve Winberg, Doe’s assistant secretary for Fossil Energy, in a statement.

The test well’s location in the Prudhoe Bay oilfield provides the needed infrastructure to conduct experiments of sufficient duration to reveal how gas hydrates release natural gas in response to reservoir depressurization, Doe said....
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Offline kidd

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Re: Doe drills methane hydrate test well on Alaska’s North Slope
« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2019, 06:53:24 pm »
I understand that sedimentary natural gas hydrates are too widely dispersed to be economical, yet a small amount yields a large amount of natural gas.

Can horizontal drilling be used ?

Offline dfwgator

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Re: Doe drills methane hydrate test well on Alaska’s North Slope
« Reply #2 on: February 01, 2019, 07:06:35 pm »
That must be some deer.

Offline thackney

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Re: Doe drills methane hydrate test well on Alaska’s North Slope
« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2019, 07:17:48 pm »
I understand that sedimentary natural gas hydrates are too widely dispersed to be economical, yet a small amount yields a large amount of natural gas.

Can horizontal drilling be used ?

I do not think that is the case in the Arctic.  This is an accumulation trapped by the permafrost.  It is widespread in that area.



https://geology.com/articles/methane-hydrates/
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Offline IsailedawayfromFR

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Re: Doe drills methane hydrate test well on Alaska’s North Slope
« Reply #4 on: February 01, 2019, 10:02:37 pm »
I understand that sedimentary natural gas hydrates are too widely dispersed to be economical, yet a small amount yields a large amount of natural gas.

Can horizontal drilling be used ?
methane exists everywhere, including in almost every gallon of water on earth.

Makes the volumes of methane very very large, so you are correct it's spread so thinly that it causes problems to economically exploit the vast majority of it.  To date, only traps like in conventional fields, unconventional resources like shales, and coal seam gas have sufficient concentration to exploit.

Hydrates also have a concentrated resource but not anything proven commercial.  Its difficulty will always be its environment ie offshore or locked in ice.  Horizontal possible for it to increase spread area, but more likely to have success in vertical wells placed where hydrates are thick.
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