Taiwan finds huge underwater gas hydrate reserve

TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan geologists have confirmed the existence of more than 500 billion cubic meters of gas hydrate off the southwest coast, enough to meet the island’s gas needs for over 60 years, a government geologist said on Monday.

But commercial extraction is likely much more than a decade away as techniques to tap the gas are still being developed, Wang Yunshuen, section chief of the mineral resources section, at the Central Geological Survey.

“For gas hydrate, every country in the world is still in the investigative stage and cannot yet produce it commercially,” Wang said. “There are still many technical difficulties that must be overcome …. it will take more than 10 years,” Wang said.

Hydrate formations exist under hundreds of meters of water in places like the Gulf of Mexico and closer to the surface in permafrost areas of the Arctic.

Reuters