High-Pressure Rheology of Methane Hydrate Sediment Slurry Using a Modified Couette Geometry

Abstract

Information on the high pressure rheological properties of methane hydrate sediment slurry is an important precursor to understand their impact on the mechanical behaviour of host sediments during natural gas production from hydrate reservoirs. However, rheological analysis of gas hydrate slurries in the presence of natural sediments containing complex minerals and salts is not yet available in the open literature. The multiphase nature of hydrate systems is another challenge when it comes to the high pressure rheology study. Since, the conventional Couette geometry does not ensure proper mixing of solid, liquid and gas phases during hydrate formation and rheological measurements in a multiphase system, in this work, it has been modified to enhance the mixing capabilities. In this work, the rheological experiments on methane hydrate formation in sediment sample collected from Krishna Godavari Basin of offshore India have been performed. Rheological investigations were carried out using three different sed...