Resource Characterization and Quantification of Natural Gas-Hydrate and Associated Free-Gas Accumulations in the Prudhoe Bay - Kuparuk River Area on the North Slope of Alaska

Abstract

Natural gas hydrates have long been considered a nuisance by the petroleum industry. Hydrates have been hazards to drilling crews, with blowouts a common occurrence if not properly accounted for in drilling plans. In gas pipelines, hydrates have formed plugs if gas was not properly dehydrated. Removing these plugs has been an expensive and time-consuming process. Recently, however, due to the geologic evidence indicating that in situ hydrates could potentially be a vast energy resource of the future, research efforts have been undertaken to explore how natural gas from hydrates might be produced. This study investigates the relative permeability of methane and brine in hydrate-bearing Alaska North Slope core samples. In February 2007, core samples were taken from the Mt. Elbert site situated between the Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk oil fields on the Alaska North Slope. Core plugs from those core samples have been used as a platform to form hydrates and perform unsteady-steady-state displacement relative permeability experiments. The absolute permeability of Mt. Elbert core samples determined by Omni Labs was also validated as part of this study. Data taken with experimental apparatuses at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, ConocoPhillips laboratories at the Bartlesville Technology Center, and at the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation's facilities in Anchorage, Alaska, provided the basis for this study. This study finds that many difficulties inhibit the ability to obtain relative permeability data in porous media-containing hydrates. Difficulties include handling unconsolidated cores during initial core preparation work, forming hydrates in the core in such a way that promotes flow of both brine and methane, and obtaining simultaneous two-phase flow of brine and methane necessary to quantify relative permeability using unsteady-steady-state displacement methods.