BP drills test well in Alaska for gas hydrates

BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc has completed a well drilled to help test whether it may be feasible to tap some of Alaska’s vast gas hydrate reserves, the unit of BP Plc said yesterday.

The well, drilled at BP’s Milne Point oilfield, was part of a federal Department of Energy programme evaluating the approximately 450 trillion cubic feet of gas hydrates that the US Geological Survey believes are held in the North Slope’s permafrost.