State to evaluate North Slope hydrate

The State of Alaska has announced that it is evaluating the potential to conduct long-term field tests of natural gas production from methane hydrate in 11 land tracts on the North Slope. Meantime, the state is withholding the tracts from the 2013 North Slope and Beaufort Sea lease sales. The state says that it wants to conduct methane hydrate testing on the North Slope in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy — in April Dan Sullivan, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, signed a memorandum of understanding with Chris Smith, the Department of Energy acting assistant for fossil energy, to jointly foster unconventional energy research, including methane hydrate research, in Alaska.

Methane hydrate, an ice-like solid material in which methane molecules become trapped within a lattice of water molecules in a certain range of temperature and pressure conditions, is known to exist in extensive deposits around the base of the permafrost under the North Slope. The material could prove to become a prolific source of natural gas, although nobody has yet demonstrated the long-term technical and commercial viability of gas production by this means. Internationally, there have been several research projects targeting methane hydrate production, including the drilling and testing of two methane hydrate test wells on the North Slope.

The Department of Natural Resources says that the tracts selected for potential methane hydrate tests are close to known methane hydrate deposits, within zones with a high probability of hydrate occurrence. The tracts are currently un-leased while also lying close to the North Slope oil and gas infrastructure. The intent is to assess research options, including a long-term production test, if the existence of hydrates is confirmed on one or more of the tracts, with the possibility of a research partnership with private companies, DNR says.

—Alan Bailey