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Methane hydrate production test on North Slope set for 2023-2024
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Alaska Senate Resources Committee got an update Jan. 23 on oil and gas resources on Alaska’s North Slope, including progress of the methane hydrates test project. Derek Nottingham, director of the Division of Oil and Gas in the Department of Natural Resources, said that project was funded by the Japanese Organization for Metals and Energy Security, JOGMEC, and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Nottingham said Japan is very interested in methane hydrates because they would like to have domestic energy security. He said the goal of this project, operated by ASRC Energy Services on the 7-11-12 pad on the west side of Prudhoe Bay, is to look at the long-term production viability of methane hydrate reservoirs.
Two production test wells are planned, along with a geologic data well, with the first production west well completed in November, and the second currently being drilled. The geologic data well is also complete.
Nottingham said the production test is scheduled to start in April and run through the end of 2024.
One of a kind Nottingham called it a one of a kind project and said testing of methane hydrate production was just starting.
Citing data from the U.S. Geological Survey, he said that agency has estimated an undiscovered resource of 53.8 trillion cubic feet of gas within hydrates on the North Slope.
Addressing a question on the commerciality of methane hydrate resources on the North Slope, Nottingham noted that the known conventional natural gas resources at Prudhoe and Point Thomson is estimated at some 40-50 tcf. That known conventional gas is much easier to produce and would have a substantial life prior to methane hydrate being developed, he said.
The Japanese and Asian market, on the other hand, is in pursuit of a domestic supply, Nottingham said and this project can help them understand the resource.
John Crowther, deputy DNR commissioner, said the North Slope of Alaska is one of the few places in the world that has methane hydrates in an area with production facilities, putting the state is in a unique position to be a first mover. Were there to be large-scale development of methane hydrates, the Alaska North Slope would be the place to do it, he said.
Methane hydrate Methane hydrate is a solid with molecules of methane, the primary component of natural gas, concentrated inside a lattice of water molecules. Vast quantities of methane hydrate are known to exist around the base of the permafrost on the North Slope.
Because of its substantial oil and gas infrastructure the North Slope is considered an excellent location for testing methane hydrate production.
There was an initial test well from the Prudhoe Bay pad in January 2019 which penetrated two highly saturated methane hydrate-bearing reservoirs. A plan to drill addition wells was delayed, presumably by COVID 19.
The geo-data well will be used to collect subsurface sediment samples before being converted into a monitoring wells, with the well drilled in 2019 also planned to be used for colling data.
DOE has described the objective of the testing as determining the response to production of a hydrate reservoir over a long enough period to effectively evaluate how gas hydrates release gas in response to reservoir depressurization.
- KRISTEN NELSON
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