Over Naturally occurring gas hydrates as a clean geo-energy resource and possible environmental hazard

Avondlezing door Pacelli L. J. Zitha georganiseerd door de Chemische Kring Midden Nederland.

Samenvatting
Natural gas hydrates represent a large clean hydrocarbon resource. After being subject to frequent corrections over three decades, the estimated natural gas hydrates reserves in the USA alone represent about 5.6×10¹⁵ sm³ of methane: this is about seven times the estimated reserves of non-hydrate natural gas (0.8 ×10¹⁵ sm³). Large-scale methane recovery from hydrates remained uncertain mainly because conventional gas, and to some extent Shale gas, have much higher economic value at current prices and environmental regulations. One of the reasons for this is that hydrates are dispersed and single large accumulations (of 100 tcf or more) have not been reported. This talk will review the key aspects pertinent to the extraction of natural gas (essentially methane) from gas hydrate locked in marine sediments. The recently announced ‘offshore first’ methane production by depressurization in the Nankai slope (Japan) will be examined along other field scale pilot tests as a way to highlight frontier technological and scientific knowledge and challenges.

Curriculum vitae:
Pacelli L. J. Zitha is a Professor and Chair of Oil and Gas Production Engineering at the Delft University of Technology Department of Geoscience and Engineering. From 2002 to 2007 he was Scientific Director of the Dietz Laboratory at the Department of Geotechnology. From 2006 to 2010 he worked as a Senior Research Advisor with Shell. For more than 18 years he conducted research and development on Water Management and IOR/EOR. He participated in numerous field development planning, feasibility studies and field scale pilot design, planning and implementation. He holds an MSc degree in Theoretical Fluid Physics (1991) and a PhD degree in Condensed Matter Physics (1994), from the University Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI). He published over 120 technical and scientific papers. He lectured various short courses including Formation Damage and Natural Gas Engineering, Production Engineering. He served in various committees including the SPE R&D Advisory Committee (2007-2010) and as Chairman of the European Formation Damage Conference (2009, 2011).

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