Conoco to spud Prudhoe hydrates well

DOE project will be first field trial of exchange technology to produce methane, sequester carbon dioxide in hydrate structure

Wesley Loy

For Petroleum News

ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc. was expected to spud a natural gas hydrates exploratory well by the end of March in the Prudhoe Bay field.

The company is doing the project in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy.

The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission approved a drilling permit for the Ignik Sikumi No. 1 well on March 1.

ConocoPhillips spokeswoman Natalie Lowman told Petroleum News on March 22 that the company preferred not to say much about the drilling, in deference to the DOE. But it was “safe to say” the well would spud sometime in March, she said.

Staggering hydrates potential

ConocoPhillips is a major owner in Prudhoe, but BP operates the field.

The DOE selected ConocoPhillips to perform the first field trial of a “promising technology” to produce methane from gas hydrates on Alaska’s North Slope, a project data sheet said.

“This trial represents the first experiment outside a laboratory of this production technology in which a carbon dioxide molecule is exchanged for the methane molecule locked up in the hydrate’s structure. The methane gas is produced, and the carbon dioxide is sequestered inside the hydrate structure,” the data sheet said.

Gas hydrates are believed to be a huge resource across the Slope. The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated 85 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable gas resources exist within northern Alaska hydrates.

That dwarfs the 35 tcf of known conventional gas in Prudhoe Bay and other North Slope fields.

Hydrates are a solid, crystalline form of gas, usually methane, mixed in sandstone and water. A combination of cold and pressure keeps the gas as a solid.

ConocoPhillips isn’t the first to target Slope hydrates.

BP in February 2007 drilled a DOE-funded test well in the company’s Milne Point field.