New Technology for NGH Development and Production

The main area in which new technology and approaches has the potential to dramatically reduce the cost of natural gas hydrate (NGH) development is in drilling and reservoir planning, and preparation for production. Substantial existing technology and emerging methods being developed for ultra-deepwater, particularly those based on operating processing equipment on the seafloor rather than in vessels overhead, can be used in a re-specified form. New approaches to drilling and reservoir planning are made possible by matching technology to the unique characteristics of NGH in its reservoir, including the shallow depth below the seafloor of potential pay zones, the additional benefits of depressurization-dissociation conversion (Max and Johnson in Advances in clean hydrocarbon fuel processing: science and technology. Woodhead Publishing, Cambridge, pp 413–434, 2011), and the fact that the converted NGH product (which consists almost entirely of relatively pure natural gas and very low salinity water) will be at substantially lower pressures within the reservoir. Not only can pressure in the reservoir be controlled, but it is possible to maintain different pressures in different parts of the reservoir to better control dissociation and water and gas movement. A completely new, integrated approach to drilling NGH deposits is intended to optimize the opportunities presented by NGH deposits.