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Tapping hot ice Drilling continues on Anadarko’s methane gas project south of Kuparuk, core recovery from permafrost layer is nearly 100 percent; DOE officials visit Patricia Jones Petroleum News Contributing Writer
Tapping hot ice — encapsulated methane gas — could provide Alaska’s next economic boom and a new energy source for the nation.
That’s according to Carl Michael Smith, assistant secretary for fossil energy in the U.S. Department of Energy, who toured on April 7 the offshore style of drilling platform that Anadarko Petroleum is operating on its methane gas hydrate project south of Kuparuk.
“This is the first gas hydrate well drilled in the United States, so it’s really a state of the art technology,” Smith told Petroleum News April 8. “If that technology can be proven, it would be a tremendous boom for the state of Alaska.”
The Department of Energy contributed almost half — a little more than $5 million — of the cost of the Hot Ice research project. Remaining costs, include operation of an on-site laboratory to record and analyze the frozen methane gases extracted by the hard-rock mining core rig, are shared by Anadarko and its partners Maurer Technology and Noble Engineering and Development. Initial coring successful Core recovery in the first 800 feet has ranged from 85 percent to nearly 100 percent, defying industry concern about collecting drill core samples from permafrost, said Thomas Williams, Noble’s project contact.
“The big chunks of rock and loose sands make recovery very difficult,” he told Petroleum News April 9. “This may be an indication of how successful we are in the hydrate area.”
Also new to the North Slope is the prototype Arctic platform, which sits on legs above the tundra. Smith described the structure as very similar to offshore mobile drilling platforms.
“The rig is totally self-contained. Nothing escapes from the rig itself into the environment,” he said, describing the 16 buckets under the base of the platform, which catch runoff. “When the use of the rig is concluded, they will pull out (the support legs), fill the holes and repair the tundra. There will be no environmental impact whatsoever.”
While the tundra-friendly physical structure of the Hot Ice drilling platform represents a logistical breakthrough that could have immediate impacts on extending North Slope exploration, Smith said DOE is greatly interested in the longer view regarding the project’s assessment of recovering this unconventional energy resource.
“The real goal is to find some hydrocarbons from gas hydrates and assess how in the future we might be able to produce them,” he said. “The vast majority of gas hydrates believed to be producible are right here in Alaska — that’s why this test is being conducted here.”
Total recoverable gas hydrates locked in Arctic underground ice structures, called clathrates, is estimated to range from 11,000 to 24,000 trillion cubic feet, according to the project’s website. U.S. Geological Survey research conducted in the 1980s and 1990s on the North Slope put a resource number on the region’s gas hydrates at 590 trillion cubic feet.
Evaluating hydrates and their production potential is the goal of the research project, and a long-term research and development objective of DOE, Smith said.
“This is certainly an area that has potential for long range energy benefits for the country,” he said. Too early to tell results During his on-site visit, Smith said crews were “in the middle of the drilling process” of the planned 3,000-foot well.
“They’re taking core samples and analyzing them with state-of-the-art technology and apparatus on site,” he said. “They’re getting some interesting reads, and they are in constant communication …. for verification on the data.”
Drilling data published on a website shows core depth and a percentage of core recovery for each day of drilling since work began March 31. On April 6, the website report said that the “coring process is now running smoothly. We are seeing about one core (10 ft) an hour with close to 100 percent recovery. The core looks full gauge with very little mud attached. It is well frozen. We have seen a lot of gravel and larger material. (Some of the crew would like to pan it for gold!)” These core recovery results so far have pleased operators and those monitoring the project, said Williams, at Noble.
“A lot of people working on the slope for a long time were estimating that we would have low recovery of the permafrost,” he said, in a phone interview on April 9.
Smith said it is too early to tell about the drilling results. “That information really won’t be complete until all operations are concluded and they analyze all sections,” he said. “I’m not sure about the timetable, but I’m sure it will be within a matter of months.”
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