Participants call Mallik 2002 gas hydrate research well a success

Petroleum News

Results of the 2002 Mallik gas hydrate research well were released at a symposium in Japan Dec. 9. Mallik, drilled from Richard’s Island in the Mackenzie Delta, Northwest Territories, Canada, “represents one of the highest concentrations of gas hydrates found to date in the world,” project head Natural Resources Canada said in a statement. The gas hydrates, naturally occurring ‘ice-like’ combinations of natural gas and water, underlie large portions of the world’s Arctic continental areas and marine continental shelves, and are believed to exceed the volume of all known conventional gas resources, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

“A major achievement of the program was the first modern production test of natural gas hydrates,” the project sponsors said in a statement, proving “for the first time” that gas production from hydrates is technically feasible.

The Mallik partnership drilled three wells to 1,166-plus meters to intersect and test the gas hydrate field. The wells, at 50-meter spacing, consisted of a production test well with observation wells on either side. The partners said an extensive suite of open-hole logs and advanced gas hydrate logging tools were run and continuous wireline core was recovered through the hydrates intervals.

The U.S. Geological Survey said in a statement that while additional research is needed, the “depressurization and thermal heating experiments at Mallik site were extremely successful” and “demonstrated that gas can be produced from gas hydrates with different concentrations and characteristics, exclusively through pressure stimulation.”

The USGS said data from Mallik “supports the interpretation that the gas hydrates are much more permeable and conducive to flow from pressure stimulation than previously thought.

“In one test, the gas production rates were substantially enhanced by artificially fracturing the reservoir.”

Partners included the government of Canada, with Natural Resources Canada heading the project, and the Geological Survey of Canada; Japan National Oil Corp.; the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of Energy; the government of Germany; the government of India; a Chevron-British Petroleum-Burlington joint venture group; and the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program.