Prevention of Potential Hazards Associated with Marine Gas Hydrate Exploitation: A Review

Abstract

Marine gas hydrates (MGHs), which have great potential for exploitation and utilization, account for around 99% of all global natural gas hydrate resources under current prospecting technique. However, there are several potential hazards associated with their production and development. These are classified into four categories by this paper: marine geohazards, greenhouse gas emissions, marine ecological hazards, and marine engineering hazards. In order to prevent these risks from occurring, the concept of "lifecycle management of hazards prevention" during the development and production from MGHs is proposed and divided into three stages: preparation, production control, and post-production protection. Of these stages, economic evaluation of the resource is the foundation; gas production methods are the key; with monitoring, assessment, and early warning as the guarantee. A production test in the Shenhu area of the South China Sea shows that MGH exploration and development can be planned using the "three-steps" methodology: commercializing and developing research ideas in the short term, maintaining economic levels of production in the medium term, and forming a global forum to discuss effective MGH development in the long term. When increasing MGH development is combined with the lifecycle management of hazards prevention system, and technological innovations are combined with global cooperation to solve the risks associated with MGH development, then safe access to a new source of clean energy may be obtained.

Emerging Advances in Petrophysics: Porous Media Characterization and Modeling of Multiphase Flow

“…The methane in all samples was of microbial origin and derived from CO 2 reduction. Moreover, Wang et al [19] analyzed the potential hazards associated with the production and development of marine gas hydrates. Marine geo-hazards, greenhouse gas emissions, marine ecological hazards, and marine engineering hazards are four reported hazard categories.…”

The Acoustic Properties of Sandy and Clayey Hydrate-Bearing Sediments

“…Being solid crystal, gas hydrates can be viewed as pore occupants, or be part of rocks that works as skeleton structure of the reservoir [36,37]. Once the hydrate is dissociating, it may significantly affect layer mechanical strength and cause serious geological disasters, such as submarine landslide, gas release, and break well systems [38][39][40]. In this work, we studied the influence of hydrate decomposition on the physical mechanism of hydrate sediments by comparing the acoustic velocity before and after hydrate decomposition.…”

Surface Drilling Parameters and Drilling Optimization Techniques: Are They Useful Tools in Gas Hydrate Detection?

“…The gas hydrate accumulations among shallow gas, shallow faulting, and turbidites in deep-water shallow marine sediments over several years of oil and gas exploration are considered risky and unwanted safety and stability hazards that need to be considered when preparing offshore drilling campaigns [10]. Two main categories of hazards associated with gas hydrates-marine geohazards and marine engineering hazards-can be distinguished [11].…”