Recent advances in natural gas hydrate carriers for gas transportation - A review and conceptual design

Abstract

Abstract: Natural gas hydrate (NGH) is emerging as a new eco-friendly source of energy to replace fossil fuels in the 21st century. It is well known that the Natural Gas Hydrate contains large amount of natural gas about 170 times as much as its volume and it is easy to be stored and transported safely at about –20℃ un-der atmospheric pressure due to so called “self-preservation effect”. The option of gas transport by gas hy-drate pellets carrier has been investigated and developed in various industry and academy. The natural gas hy-drate pellet carrier is on major link in a potential gas hydrate process chain, starting with the extraction of natural gas from the reservoir, followed by the production of hydrate pellets and the transportation to an on-shore terminal for further processing or marketing. In recent years, Korean project team supported by Korean Government has been working on the develop-ment of NGH total systems including novel NGH carrier since 2011. In order to increase the knowledge on the NGH pellet carrier developed and to understand the major hazards that could have significant impact on the safety of the vessel, this paper presents and evaluates the pros and cons of cargo holds, loading and un-loading systems through the analysis of current patent technology. Based on the proven and well-known tech-nologies as well as potential measures to mitigate sintering and minimize mechanical stress on the hydrate pellet in the self-preservation state, this study presents the conceptual and basic design for NGH carrier.