Drilling Rig in Alaska Photo courtesy Tom Mroz

Specially, the goals of the Interagency U.S. program in gas hydrates are as follows:

Production Potential

• Ongoing: work with operators to develop one or more extended-term production testing projects ;
• Ongoing: work with interested stakeholders to develop a program of marine drilling, coring, logging, and remote sensing data acquisition;
• Ongoing: fully support efforts within the Department Of Interior to produce geologic assessments of gas hydrate resources;
• By 2015: provide initial assessment of the scale of the potentially-commercially viable Gas Hydrate (GH) resource on the Alaska North Slope;
• By 2020: demonstrate viable GH exploration and characterization methods and document the scale and nature of GH occurrence within the Gulf of Mexico;
• By 2025: demonstrate the technical recoverability and assess the economic recoverability of marine gas hydrate-bearing sand reservoirs; and
• By 2025: assess the potential to further extend marine hydrate recoverability beyond the initially assessed GH play types (GH-bearing sand reservoirs).

Environmental Issues

• By 2015 or sooner, the program will: 1) demonstrate viable technologies to assess and mitigate environmental impacts related to ongoing “conventional” oil and gas E&P activities; as well as any unique environmental impacts related to potential commercial production of gas from gas hydrates;
• By 2015: provide an initial estimate of the role of GH in mediating ongoing methane flux from sediments to the ocean/atmosphere in key settings; and
• By 2025 or sooner: document the potential for and environmental impact of hydrate degassing related to ongoing climate change.

The achievement of these goals will depend heavily on the successful planning and operation of a series of scientific and engineering field programs. However, success in the planning, operation, and interpretation of the results of these programs, and therefore in a fuller knowledge of the nature and behavior of GH-systems, will rely on sound scientific investigations in the lab and in the development of conceptual and numerical models that accurately capture the nature and behavior of gas hydrate-bearing sediments in natural settings.

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