DOE to invest in six methane hydrate research projects

The US Department of Energy plans to spend $ 30 mm on six methane hydrate research projects. ChevronTexaco and BP will receive most of the money to study production in the Gulf of Mexico deep water and Alaskan North Slope, respectively.
ChevronTexaco will conduct a $ 13.6 mm Gulf of Mexico drilling project; DOE will fund $ 10.6 mm of the cost over 40 months. BP meanwhile plans a $ 21.3 mm North Slope research project; DOE's share will be $ 13.3 mm over 48 months. Besides oil company research, DOE said it plans to give research money to universities, drilling companies, and government ocean experts to tackle technical and safety issues.

In 1997-98, DOE revived its hydrate research program by involving joint efforts from several other federal agencies, including the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the departments of Commerce and Interior. The agencies' aim then and now was to examine both the energy production potential and possible safety concerns of methane hydrates.
Congress gave DOE $ 13.1 mm for methane hydrate research under the fiscal year budget that officially ended Oct. 1. Under a pending spending bill President George W. Bush is expected to sign, DOE will get an additional $ 9.8 mm for fiscal year 2002.
In its Oct. 19 announcement, DOE called methane hydrates "a tantalizing energy prospect." It said, "A mixture of natural gas and water frozen into ice crystals, hydrates could be an immense future source of clean energy. Scientists estimate that if only 1 % of the hydrate resource in the United States could be tapped, America's natural gas supplies could be more than doubled."

DOE acknowledged, however, there are environmental and safety concerns associated with methane hydrates. And with companies drilling ever deeper offshore, more research is needed, the agency said. As hydrates dissociate into water or ice and methane, instabilities can be created within the seafloor or the wellbore.
"Therefore, technologies to locate and either avoid or deal with potential problem areas will be especially important," DOE said. "Numerous landslide scars detected on relatively gentle slopes of the continental shelf may be evidence of hydrates breaking apart at or just below the ocean floor. Although a seafloor hydrate slide has never been observed, safety concerns arise as companies probe for oil and gas in deeper offshore waters where encounters with hydrates are more likely," DOE said.
Using seismic surveys, well logging, and core samples extracted in the internationally sponsored Ocean Drilling Program, a 1995 US Geological Survey concluded US hydrate resources could be as much as 320,000 tcf. By comparison, the US has about 167 tcf of proved natural gas reserves and about 1,400 tcf of total gas resources in formations other than methane hydrates.

The DOE is funding the BP and TexacoChevron projects, plus four more:
-- BP Exploration, Anchorage, Alaska, will characterize, quantify, and determine the commercial viability of in situ, recoverable gas hydrates and associated free gas resources in three areas of the Alaska North Slope: Prudhoe Bay, Kuparuk River, and Milne Point units.
The project will provide practical input to reservoir and economic models, determine the feasibility of gas hydrate production, and provide leverage for exploration and field extension of hydrates in the three ANS areas being studied. The University of Alaska in Fairbanks, the University of Arizona in Tucson, and the US Geological Survey will assist BP.
Project cost: $ 21.3 mm; proposed DOE award: $ 13.27 mm; participant share: $ 8.05 mm.
Project duration: 48 months.

-- Chevron Petroleum Technology, Houston, proposes a two-phase study that would drill for gas hydrates in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. After collecting and analysing data from workshops and other sources, Chevron would devise a strategy to drill through hydrates, core them, and transport and test samples. Two wells would be drilled in areas rich in gas hydrates; a third well would be drilled nearby in an area that does not contain hydrates. Data on the drilling, seismic response, and cores from these sites would determine the effects of hydrates in the pore space of rocks.
Depending on the results, a third phase involving the drilling of seven boreholes would be proposed.
Project cost: $ 13.6 mm; proposed DOE award: $ 10.58 mm; participant share: $ 3.02 mm.
Project duration: 40 months.

-- University of California at San Diego, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, San Diego, California, proposes to conduct a field and laboratory study to better understand the formation and dissociation of exposed gas hydrates and gas hydrate-rich sediments in the northern Gulf of Mexico. The work will characterize the chemistry and structure of the hydrates; the composition of overlying seawater; and the chemistry, mineralogy, and hydrology of associated sediments and pore waters.
Hydrates will be collected using a submersible vehicle and specially designed pressure chambers and sampling equipment. Methane release and its effect on the immediate environment will be monitored with a yearlong seafloor installation of specialized sampling equipment and time-lapse camera surveillance.
Project cost: $ 612,528; proposed DOE award: $ 550,002; participant share: $ 62,526.
Project duration: 12 months.

-- Joint Oceanographic Institutions, Washington, DC, proposes to develop and test tools to sample and characterize methane hydrates using the systems and capabilities of the drilling research ship JOIDES Resolution (JOIDES stands for Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling). Future testing would be conducted in the Gulf of Mexico. The project's funds would benefit the Ocean Drilling Program, which seeks to improve in situ core recovery systems that better characterize gas hydrates in the seafloor.
Project cost: $ 4.197 mm; proposed DOE award: $ 959,786; participant share: $ 3.23 mm.
Project duration: 18 months

-- Halliburton Energy Services, Houston, with Westport Technology Centre International proposes to expand knowledge of gas hydrates through lab experiments and analytic modelling. Specifically, the project would identify and measure properties to characterize methane production from a reservoir typical to the Gulf of Mexico and quantify the effects sediments have on those properties. It also would develop a reservoir model that integrates that data to assess well productivity. It then would develop a hydrate reservoir simulator by combining the reservoir model and geophysical properties models from the project with an in-house model.
Project cost: $ 820,750; proposed DOE award: $ 655,750; participant share: $ 165,000.
Project duration: 36 months.

-- Maurer Technology, Houston, proposes a two-phase project to evaluate existing best technologies to drill, complete, and produce methane from hydrates, and to drill, core, test, and instrument three gas hydrate wells in the Prudhoe Bay-Kuparuk River area of Northern Alaska. The project will obtain the field data required to verify geological, geophysical, and geochemical models of hydrates, and to plan and implement a program that safely and economically drills and produces gas from Arctic hydrates. Anadarko Petroleum and Noble Engineering and Development will assist Maurer.
Project cost: $ 7.36 mm; proposed DOE award: $ 3.99 mm; participant share: $ 3.37 mm.
Project duration: 28 months.