US Gas Hydrates Find Has Worldwide Implications

In a 21-day expedition led by Chevron, DOE’s National Energy Technology Lab (NETL), the US Geological Survey, the Minerals Management Service, in addition to a host of other industry experts, the most prospective gas hydrates reservoirs yet found have been located and drilled.

“Gas hydrates for a long time have been the most elusive and confounding of hydrocarbon deposits to find,” said Dan McConnell, vice president of AOA Geophysics, one of the companies selected for the site selection committee. “This is the very first time that thick hydrates accumulations have been drilled by design, that those hydrates were where they were predicted to be.”

The Gulf of Mexico Gas Hydrates Joint Industry Program (JIP) was formed by US governmental groups and petroleum companies to investigate the occurrence of gas hydrates and develop technologies for reliable detection and safe drilling.

“The goal of the DOE program is to determine the scale at which gas hydrates exist in potentially recoverable reservoirs in the Gulf,” said Ray Boswell, the project leader from NETL. “This expedition is a major success in that effort.”

“In the pursuit for gas hydrates, which has been put on by Japan, India, Korea and China, it was thought for a while that the US had lagged in its efforts,” said McConnell. “But we have in this one expedition found the most promising hydrates that can actually be produced — the thickest, most saturated hydrates that have yet been encountered. So, it really is a landmark expedition.”

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