World Wide Gas Hydrates
Do you know that
the United States has more energy in terms of
barrels-of-oil equivalent than Saudi Arabia has oil!
Yes, enough for
energy independence for many, many decades.
This
energy is in the form of natural gas locked in naturally
occurring hydrate structures that occur in the Gulf of
Mexico, Alaska mainland, and in the Alaskan seas. Visit
the U.S. Dept of Energy website at
http://www.netl.doe.gov/scngo/Natural
Gas/Hydrates/about-hydrates/about_hydrates.htm
to learn more
about naturally occurring gas hydrates.
Information is
also available at
http://www.rice.edu/energy/publications/docs/Fire_in_Ice_Johnson.pdf
Why is this not
more generally known? Why do these deposits not show up
more frequently in public discussion of energy reserves?
For a natural gas
reservoir to qualify as a listed energy reserve,
regulations require that there exist least one well
producing gas from the reservoir. To have such a well
you need an economical extraction technology that does
not currently exist. Studies have been conducted with
hot saline injection and well depressurization
techniques to extract gas from in-situ hydrate
structures, but to date none of these extraction
technologies have proved satisfactory. So, no producing
well, and no listed energy reserve.
An additional
problem is that any gas produced needs a pipeline to
deliver it to the marketplace. Currently there is a
shortage of such pipelines from areas containing hydrate
structures. This seems to be a “chicken and egg”
situation. Which comes first? No pipeline – then no
one wants to drill a well. No well producing gas – then
no one wants to build a pipeline.
World
Wide Gas Hydrates has a patented extraction technology
for producing natural gas from hydrate deposits. The
materials used are environmentally benign, and have
already been used in underground applications with no
untoward effects. The material releases natural gas
from hydrate deposits in laboratory tests. The material
is also inexpensive.
WWGH is a
technology company and needs to partner with an
operating company who has a suitable well that can be
used to test the technology. Many existing gas wells
penetrate hydrate structures but the operating companies
are currently unable to release gas from these hydrate
structures. Such wells tap only the “free gas” that is
available. When the free gas supply is exhausted the
well is closed leaving the hydrate deposits, and their
huge source of natural gas still intact. This means
there are suitable test wells already drilled and just
lying dormant!
WWGH can supply
commercial quantities of our extraction medium to any
well site in the world. WWGH wishes to partner with a
well operating company to test this extraction
technology. If an operating partner can be found it is
possible that such a partnership-project could qualify
for funding from the U.S. Dept. of Energy
If you wish to
partner with World Wide Gas Hydrates to test this
technology, please contact JASRA.
