BP gets partial DOE funding for gas hydrates study

Company will map, quantify and assess feasibility of gas production from North Slope methane hydrates

Kristen Nelson

PNA Editor-in-Chief

A BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. proposal has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy as one of six gas hydrates projects which will receive a total of $48 million.

The BP proposal, a four-year, $21 million research effort, will map, quantify and assess the feasibility of gas production from North Slope gas hydrates.

The DOE said Oct. 19 that its current interest in gas hydrates is driven by the need for energy and by the fact that drilling in deeper offshore waters will be through areas likely to contain hydrates. Drilling and producing hydrates “are likely to pose enormous challenges. As hydrates dissociate into water or ice and methane, instabilities can be created within the seafloor or the well bore,” requiring technologies to locate and either avoid or deal with potential problem areas, the agency said.

Are there commercial prospects?

“We see this research as a good opportunity to assess both the gas hydrate and shallow gas resources on the North Slope,” Ronnie Chappell, BP Exploration (Alaska) spokesman, told PNA Oct. 22.

“And those resources — which could be immense — would be available to support a gas commercialization effort,” he said. “In a very real sense, it's part of the full court press that's under way to move North Slope natural gas to market.”

BP will serve as the project coordinator and industry liaison, Chappell said, and will be providing seismic and well data used in the assessment.

“I don't think anyone's gone out and made an effort to use seismic and coring data to quantify gas hydrates on the North Slope — to make and quantify gas hydrates on the North Slope,” he said.

DOE said BP will look at the Prudhoe Bay, Kuparuk and Milne Point unit areas.

Working with BP will be the University of Arizona, which will integrate the data to help determine the resource extent, quality and quantity; the University of Alaska Fairbanks which will provide petroleum engineering expertise, cost analysis and economic evaluation; and the U.S. Geological Survey which, will provide expertise and experience from past research on North Slope gas hydrates, Chappell said.

The project cost is $21.3 million of which DOE will pay $13.27 million and the participants $8 million.