To investigate the effect of ice formation on gas production
from
gas-hydrate-bearing sandy porous media, we conducted dissociation
experiments using artificial methane hydrate cores by depressurizing
them to below the quadruple point. We prepared water- and gas-saturated
hydrate cores to evaluate the influence of water content on ice formation.
The experiments showed that gas production under the ice formation
regime had a unique high-rate period in the early stage of production,
whereas under the water generation regime, the high-rate period was
not observed. During ice formation, the gas production rates of the
water-saturated cores exhibited greater acceleration than those of
the gas-saturated cores. We conducted numerical simulations using
the hydrate reservoir simulator MH21-HYDRES for quantitative analyses.
The results showed that ice forms faster in a water-saturated core
because of the availability of pore water for ice formation. This
further enhances the gas production rate of a water-saturated core.
Sensitivity analyses indicated that the rate of ice formation and
the permeability reduction by ice formation are key model parameters
affecting gas production behavior. From the experimental and numerical
investigations, we conclude that depressurization-induced gas production
can be accelerated by ice formation during hydrate dissociation at
a pressure below the quadruple point.
We present a novel setup for measuring the effective gas-water permeability of methane-hydrate-bearing sediments. We developed a core holder with multiple pressure taps for measuring the pressure gradient of the gas and water phases. The gas-water flooding process was simultaneously detected using an X-ray computed tomography scanner. We successfully measured the effective gas-water permeability of an artificial sandy core with methane hydrate during the gas-water flooding test.
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