Slope methane hydrate testing on hold pending US DOE funding
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Alan Bailey for Petroleum News
A project involving the testing of methane hydrate production on the North Slope is on hold, pending a U.S. Department of Energy decision on whether to continue to provide funding support for the project. In a June 24 filing by Oliktok Pipeline Co. with the Regulatory Commission of Alaska the pipeline company asked approval for temporary disconnection of its Oliktok Pipeline from the project, while the project is on pause. The pipeline had been shipping natural gas to the methane hydrate test site for use as fuel for the project.
The testing involves the use of test wells drilled from an existing gravel pad in the Prudhoe Bay unit.
The RCA filing says that DOE approval for continued funding is not anticipated until September 2026. According to the filing, the Arctic Slope Regional Corp. subsidiary involved in the methane hydrate research project as part of an international team has indicated that it anticipates reconnecting the project to the Oliktok pipeline in September 2026 and then resuming the transport of gas through the pipeline for approximately three years.
As previously reported in Petroleum News, ASRC Energy Services has recently received approval from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources' Division of Oil and Gas to extend the methane hydrate test program through to August 2028. Earlier testing in the project began in September 2023 and was completed in July 2024. The division approval requires work at the project site to recommence by June 2028.
A natural gas resource Methane hydrate is a solid in which molecules of methane, the primary component of natural gas, are concentrated inside a lattice of water molecules. Huge quantities of the material, which remains stable within a certain range of relatively high pressures and low temperatures, are known to exist around the base of the permafrost under the North Slope. Gas can be released from hydrates through some combination of elevating the temperature or reducing the pressure of the hydrate resource.
Alaska's North Slope is considered a particularly suitable venue for testing the production of natural gas from methane hydrate, given the presence of large quantities of methane hydrate, onshore, in a region with an extensive oil and gas development and production infrastructure. Successful testing on the North Slope could lead to methane hydrate development anywhere in the world where there are conveniently located methane hydrate resources.
--ALAN BAILEY
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