MOSCOW, May 18 - RIA Novosti. China has announced a successful experiment to extract “combustible ice”—natural gas hydrate—from the bottom of the South China Sea. According to statements by representatives of the Ministry of Natural Resources of China on CCTV, the start of industrial production of gas hydrate may mean a transition to clean alternative energy of the future.
According to Ye Jianliang, a representative of the Chinese Geological Survey, work to extract gas hydrates from a depth of more than a kilometer has been carried out since May 10. During this time, it was possible to produce more than 120 thousand cubic meters of gas.
According to the head of the department for research of the energy complex of the world and Russia at the Institute of Energy Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vyacheslav Kulagin, it is still premature to talk about the beginning of the energy revolution.
“The fact that China was able to confirm the possibility of extracting gas from gas hydrates is truly an achievement from a scientific point of view,” comments Vyacheslav Kulagin. “But today the key issue is the economic efficiency of this method of methane extraction, which has not yet been disclosed. At the moment, it is estimated that in the coming years and even decades, the extraction of gas from gas hydrates is unlikely to become profitable, and China itself does not consider gas hydrates in its strategic documents as one of the main types of fuel in the medium term.For example, active research on shale gas extraction was carried out in "For 35 years before the technology became economically viable, and the first production of shale gas was back in 1821. In the situation with hydrates, everything will become clearer when the economics of the project are announced."
OilPrice: shale gas will not help the US become “great” againThe export of shale gas has become a stupid step for the United States, and a clear confirmation of this is the catastrophic economic performance of American companies, writes the online publication OilPrice."Combustible ice" - gas hydrate - is an ice crystalline compound formed by natural gas (methane) and water at high pressure and low temperature. One cubic meter of “combustible ice” contains 164 cubic meters of ordinary natural gas and contains virtually no impurities. The world's estimated reserves of flammable ice are more than twice those of coal, oil and natural gas. The largest deposits are located off the coast of China. The first successful experiments in extracting natural gas from gas hydrates were carried out by Japan in 2013, but later stopped development.
Energy is “our everything” on a human scale. More precisely, energy resources. Wars are fought over them, they are accused of exacerbating global environmental problems, and modern society cannot exist without them. Therefore, the search for alternative energy sources is at the top of the agenda in many countries. Thus, China this week shocked the world with the official announcement that for the first time it was possible to extract natural gas hydrate, or “combustible ice,” from the ocean floor.
This achievement is already equated in importance to the discovery of shale gas extraction technology in the United States, and the new energy resource is credited with the role of catalyst for the global energy revolution. According to Chinese researchers, there is many times more of this unique fuel in the world than oil, gas and coal combined. This means that with the help of “combustible ice” it will be possible to solve the problem of non-renewable resources. Moreover, the Chinese government website says that “natural gas hydrate is the richest alternative energy source that will play a strategic role in the future.”
Over the past week, more than 120 cubic meters have already been produced from a well located in the South China Sea at a depth of 1200 m. m of “combustible ice” - a mixture of water and gas, reminiscent of a loose snowball. And while some are discussing whether in the future this energy resource will replace all traditional fuel sources, others are in no hurry to call everyone for an energy revolution.
By the way, research on this resource has long been known to science. Soviet scientists have expressed their assumptions about the existence of “flammable ice” at the bottom of the World Ocean, and in recent years, not only China, but also the United States and Japan have attempted to organize gas hydrate exploration. But, as we see, it was the first one who succeeded.
Expert opinion
Dmitry Nikolaevich Redka, candidate of technical sciences, assistant toDepartment of Quantum Electronics and Optical-Electronic Devices, St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University "LETI"
“Essentially, 'flammable ice' is a crystalline compound formed from water and natural gas. That is, it is still the same familiar gas, familiar to us, but in a different “packaging”. Therefore, we must understand that we are not seeing a fundamentally new energy resource, but a non-standard chemical form. And before talking about its revolutionary nature, it is necessary to answer a number of questions. Firstly, it is unknown in what volumes this “combustible ice” can be mined in the future. Next, what modifications can be made with it? What is the best way to extract and transport it? How economically justified and profitable will all this be? The answers here may be ambiguous. However, an attempt to find a new energy resource or a more efficient and safe way to produce natural gas can only be met positively.”
As you know, water has a rather complex structure. Water is a universal solvent, one of the two main universal solvents known to chemists. Water can mix with almost any substance, especially methane. When methane is dissolved in water, clusters are formed whose structures are liquid at ordinary room temperature and atmospheric pressure, but these clusters, at a temperature of the order of 4°C and a pressure of several hundred atmospheres, unlike water, become solid and form so-called gas hydrates. Hydrates are formed not only with methane, they can also form with other hydrocarbon and non-hydrocarbon gases. This is a fairly common occurrence.
If these gas hydrates are exposed to conditions where they are stable, they accumulate. Many bacteria that live in seawater produce methane. This methane binds to water and sinks to the bottom because gas hydrates are heavier than water. And deposits of gas hydrates accumulate at the bottom. All deep ocean trenches contain these hydrates. In Russia there are entire deposits of gas hydrates on land. These are gases that are mixed with water and in a solid state. Permafrost has a temperature of 0 to -3 °C; under these conditions, hydrates can form even at atmospheric pressure.
The news that China has extracted “flammable ice” from the bottom of the sea means nothing; this is a statement on the level that Russia is the homeland of elephants. This could be a statement by an incompetent person on a not very widely known topic, or a statement by a competent person who wants to deceive incompetent people. They didn't discover anything new.
The existence of gas hydrates at the bottom of deep ocean trenches has been known for more than half a century. In the 70s, it was proven that such hydrates also exist on land; they were discovered in the permafrost zone in Yakutia. Then Soviet scientists received a diploma for the discovery. As you know, it is not difficult to obtain a patent for an invention, but only a few diplomas are issued per year all over the world. But even this discovery is half a century old. As for gas hydrates, which are called “flammable ice,” everyone has known about this for a long time. Japan has been trying for several decades to implement a program to extract these gas hydrates from the bottom of the depressions. Technically, this is easy to implement and you can dredge up as many granules as you like, but the fact is that when they rise to the surface, they immediately begin to disintegrate into water and methane, which escapes into the atmosphere. By the way, methane is the most powerful agent for preserving the greenhouse effect; in this sense, it surpasses even carbon dioxide. This is direct harm to the environment.
As for using gas hydrates as fuel, this is a technical problem; you must first raise it to the surface, then create conditions so that the hydrate does not disintegrate. It is necessary to ensure low temperatures, about 4°C and a pressure of several hundred atmospheres. The hydrate is stored in this form and, if necessary, is divided into water and gas, after which the gas is used as fuel. But this turns out to be economically unfeasible, because pressure can only be maintained by consuming fuel. The result is that you spend more than you receive. The Chinese, like the Japanese, are trying to solve this technical problem, because their energy balance is negative, they are forced to import additional energy from other countries, mainly from Russia.
This topic is not very interesting and quite voluminous in terms of information. To one degree or another, this topic is dealt with here, and to some extent in the USA. This is not exotic, not a discovery or news at all. Yes, the Chinese have installed a platform, they have reached the level of semi-industrial use. Everything is good, one thing is bad - the economics of this technological process are negative. So far, more money is going there than is coming back. Therefore, gas hydrates cannot be considered competitors of conventional types of energy carriers. If this were possible, the Japanese would have long ago gotten rid of gas dependence and ceased to be the main importer of gas in the world.
MOSCOW, January 18. /TASS/. Russian mathematicians created a model for developing deposits of the richest source of natural gas on the planet - gas hydrates, the concentration of which is high in the Arctic zone, and Skoltech scientists proposed a technology for extracting methane from hydrates. Experts told TASS how the production of such methane will help reduce the greenhouse effect, what are the advantages of new research, and whether there are prospects for the industrial development of gas hydrates in Russia.
Against the greenhouse effect
Gas hydrates are solid crystalline compounds of ice and gas; they are also called “flammable ice.” In nature, they are found in the thickness of the ocean floor and in permafrost rocks, so extracting them is very difficult - wells must be drilled to a depth of several hundred meters, and then natural gas can be separated from the ice deposits and transported to the surface. Chinese oil workers managed to do this in the South China Sea in 2017, but to do this they had to go deeper into the seabed by more than 200 meters, despite the fact that the depth in the production area exceeded 1.2 km.
Researchers consider gas hydrates a promising source of energy, which can be in demand, in particular, by countries with limited other energy resources, for example, Japan and South Korea. Estimates of the content of methane, the combustion of which provides energy, in gas hydrates around the world vary: from 2.8 quadrillion tons according to the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation to 5 quadrillion tons according to the World Energy Agency (IEA). Even minimal estimates reflect huge reserves: for comparison, BP Corporation (British Petroleum) estimated global oil reserves at 240 billion tons in 2015.
“According to estimates of some organizations, primarily Gazprom VNIIGAZ, methane resources in gas hydrates on the territory of the Russian Federation range from 100 to 1000 trillion cubic meters, in the Arctic zone, including the seas, up to 600-700 trillion cubic meters, but this is very approximate,” - Evgeniy Chuvilin, leading researcher at the Center for Hydrocarbon Production at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech), told TASS.
In addition to the actual source of energy, gas hydrates can become a salvation from greenhouse gases, which will help stop global warming. The voids emptied of methane can be filled with carbon dioxide.
"According to researchers, methane hydrates contain more than 50% of the carbon of the total known world hydrocarbon reserves. This is not only the richest source of hydrocarbon gas on our planet, but also a possible reservoir for carbon dioxide, which is considered a greenhouse gas. You can kill two birds with one stone - extract methane, burn it to produce energy and pump in its place carbon dioxide obtained during combustion, which will take the place of methane in the hydrate,” Nail Musakaev, deputy director for scientific work of the Tyumen branch of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told TASS.
In permafrost conditions
Today, researchers identify three main promising methods for extracting gas hydrates.
“Before extracting gas from hydrates, it is necessary to decompose them into components - gas and water or gas and ice. The main methods of gas production can be distinguished - reducing pressure at the bottom of the well, heating the formation with hot water or steam, supplying inhibitors (substances) to the formation for the decomposition of gas hydrates - TASS note),” Musakaev explained.
Scientists from Tyumen and Sterlitamak have created a mathematical model for methane production in permafrost. It is noteworthy in that it takes into account the process of ice formation during field development.
“The formation of ice has pros and cons: it can clog equipment, but, on the other hand, the decomposition of gas hydrate into gas and ice requires three times less energy than when decomposing into gas and water,” Musakaev said.
The advantage of mathematical modeling is the ability to predict the development scenario for gas hydrate deposits, including assessing the economic efficiency of gas production methods from such deposits. The results may be of interest to design organizations involved in planning and exploration of gas hydrate fields, the scientist noted.
Skoltech is also developing technologies for extracting methane from hydrates. Together with colleagues from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Skoltech specialists proposed extracting methane from gas hydrates by pumping air into the rock layer. “This method is more economical than existing ones and has less impact on the environment,” Chuvilin explained.
This method assumes that carbon dioxide or nitrogen is injected into the formation, and gas hydrates are decomposed into components due to the difference in pressure. “We are still conducting methodological research to test the method and its effectiveness. The creation of the technology is still far away, while we are creating the physical and chemical foundations of this technology,” the scientist emphasized.
According to Chuvilin, Russia does not yet have fully ready-made technologies for the effective extraction of methane from hydrates, since there are no targeted programs to support this scientific area. But development is still underway. “Gas hydrates may not become the main energy resource of the future, but their use will certainly require the development of new knowledge,” Musakaev added.
Economic expediency
The forecast for the development of the Russian fuel and energy complex for the period up to 2035 takes into account the exploration and development of gas hydrate fields among the long-term prospects for gas production. The document notes that gas hydrates can become “a factor in global energy only in 30-40 years,” but a breakthrough scenario is not ruled out. In any case, the development of hydrates will entail a global redistribution in the world market of fuel resources - gas prices will decline, and mining corporations will be able to maintain their income only by capturing new markets and increasing sales volumes. For the massive development of such deposits, it is necessary to create new technologies, improve and reduce the cost of existing ones, the strategy notes.
Considering the inaccessibility of hydrates and the complexity of their extraction, experts call them a promising source of energy, but note that this is not a trend in the coming years - hydrates require new technologies that are still being developed. And in conditions of established natural gas production, methane from hydrates is not in the most advantageous position. In the future, everything will depend on the energy market conditions.
Deputy Director of the Skoltech Hydrocarbon Production Center Alexey Cheremisin believes that methane from hydrates will not be produced soon, precisely because of the existing reserves of traditional gas.
“The timing of industrial production depends both on the economically available technology for searching, localizing and producing gas, and on market factors. Gas producing companies have sufficient reserves of traditional gas, so they consider gas production technologies from gas hydrates as a basis for the long term. In my opinion, industrial production in the Russian Federation will begin no earlier than in 10 years,” the expert said.
According to Chuvilin, there are fields in Russia where methane from gas hydrates can begin to be produced in the next 10 years, and this will be quite promising. “In some gas fields in the north of Western Siberia, when traditional gas reservoirs are depleted, it is possible to develop overlying horizons where gas can be in hydrated form. This is possible in the next decade, everything will depend on the cost of energy resources,” the agency’s interlocutor concluded.
Chinese authorities announced a “historic breakthrough” in hydrocarbon production
Chinese specialists have established full-scale production of gas hydrates from an underwater offshore field. The official report called the incident a “historic breakthrough” that will affect the development of the entire energy sector. Analysts note that similar experiments have already been carried out by other countries and so far none of them have begun industrial production.
An experiment to extract gas hydrates from a deposit at the bottom of the South China Sea ended in “complete success,” according to the Geological Survey of China’s Ministry of Land and Natural Resources.
Development of the so-called combustible ice deposit (gas hydrates externally resemble snow or loose ice) began on May 10 and has now successfully continued for eight days in a row. During this time, more than 120 thousand cubic meters were obtained from the field, located at a depth of over 1200 m from the sea surface and about another 200 m from the bottom surface. m of gas with methane content up to 99.5%.
The Geological Survey called the experiment's success a historic breakthrough achieved "under the strong leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China." It is especially emphasized that the experiment, which became the first successful example of industrial offshore production of gas hydrates, was achieved relying solely on its own efforts and will have “far-reaching consequences.”
A report from the China Central Television (CTC) notes that in other countries, attempts to establish uninterrupted production of gas hydrates from the bottom of the sea for various reasons have not led to success, which proves that Chinese specialists have achieved the “highest world level.”
“The first successful demonstration means that the development of deposits of “combustible ice” has entered a new phase of development and can change the situation in the global energy resource extraction industry,” the TsTK emphasizes in a statement.
Gazprom was unable to assess the risks of China’s development of gas hydrate production technology. “No data from which it would be possible to draw any conclusions about the prospects of this technology have been published and we are not aware of it,” Sergei Kupriyanov, press secretary of the chairman of the board of the gas monopoly, Alexei Miller, told RBC.
China has joined experiments in gas hydrate production, which were previously carried out by some countries, notes Vygon Consulting analyst Maria Belova. Thus, in 2008, test production of gas hydrates was carried out at the Canadian Mallick field (13 thousand cubic meters of gas were produced within six days), and in 2013, the test was carried out for six days by Japan, which continues to refine the technology, Belova lists.
“We can declare a breakthrough when we see that one of the countries has begun industrial production of gas hydrates. For example, Japan, which plans to start industrial production in 2018-2019, will take about seven years from the moment of the first test, so this is not a quick process,” believes an analyst at Vygon Consulting. In addition, China has not reported anything about the economics of mining. In Japan, the cost of gas hydrate production varies between $8-30 per MMBtu, while the current and medium-term forecast gas price in the Asia-Pacific region is below this level ($5-7 MMBtu), she added.
This is a promising development, the return from which can be expected in decades, says Deputy Director of the National Energy Security Fund Alexey Grivach. “Today’s technology does not allow us to effectively extract gas hydrates. Not only is production expensive, but such fuel also needs to be delivered to the consumer, and all this costs incredible amounts of money. In light of these statements from China, I would conclude that shale production has not caught on with them,” he said.
The waters of the South China Sea, where hydrate production has begun, are the subject of territorial disputes between a number of countries. Insisting on their claims, the Chinese are strengthening the disputed archipelagos of the Spratly and Paracel Islands, on the shelf of which, according to research, large reserves of oil, gas and the same hydrates are concentrated.
From 1 cu. m of “combustible ice” you can get more than 160 cubic meters. m of methane. According to some estimates, the world's reserves of gas hydrates are an order of magnitude greater than the reserves of “ordinary” natural gas, but scientists estimate the exact volume of these reserves differently; estimates range from 2.5 thousand to 20 thousand trillion cubic meters. m. To date, gas hydrate deposits have been discovered near the coasts of the USA, Canada, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, India and China, as well as in the Mediterranean, Black, Caspian and South China seas. However, the development of gas hydrate fields is complicated by the high cost of production.
In the early 2000s, Japan began implementing a state program for the development of gas hydrate fields, where the MH21 research consortium was created. In February 2012, the Japan National Oil, Gas and Metals Corporation (JOGMEC) carried out test drilling of wells in the Pacific Ocean, and in March 2013, it was the first in the world to begin test extraction of methane from gas hydrates in the open sea. Within six days, about 120 thousand cubic meters were received. m of methane. The next test is planned for the near future, Reuters reported in April. The country plans to begin full-scale development of the field in 2018 after developing a production technology suitable for industrial use.
JOGMEC estimates that with existing reserves of methane hydrates on the country's shelf, Japan can cover its natural gas needs for 100 years into the future.
On the territory of Russia, the presence of gas hydrate deposits has been confirmed at the bottom of Lake Baikal, the Black, Caspian and Okhotsk seas, but the development of gas hydrates in these deposits has not yet been carried out. Preliminary estimates by the Gazprom VNIIGAZ company indicate the presence of gas hydrate resources in the country of 1,100 trillion cubic meters. m. In mid-2013, it was reported that the Far Eastern Geological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences invited Rosneft to study the possibility of extracting gas hydrates on the Kuril Islands shelf, estimating their potential at 87 trillion cubic meters. m.