• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.54-59
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• 2015

The gas hydrate of 10 trillion tons are buried under continental slope in the world(permafrost : 2%, marine continental slope: 98%), but technology for the the commercial gas recovery has not developed yet. There are normally four representative recovery methods: depressurization method, thermal stimulation method, inhibition injection method, and displacement method. This study focuses on change of dissociation time and gas production according to gas hydrate saturation rate and depressurization rate. It was found that the correlation between depressrization rate and dissociation time was like as $Y=0.0004X^2-0.499X+176.86$. It was also found that the bigger depressurization rate is, the better production is(methane gas is produced over 46.2% at depressurization rate 50% compared with 40%). However, on the contrary to this, it is presumed that gas production is decreased at 60% due to gas hydrate reformation.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.186-187
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• 2008

Electrical resistivity in hydrate-bearing sediments is sensitive to porosity, gas hydrate saturation, gas content, pore fluid composition, and temperature, so electrical measurements such as well logs and electromagnetic surveys have been used to explore gas hydrate-bearing formation. The high pressure tomography cell is designed considering the effect of electrode configuration and electrical shielding on tomography measurements and the safety. The evolution of electrical conductivity during $CO_2$ hydrate formation and dissociation reflects the combined effects of concurrent changes that include ionization of dissolved $CO_2$, temperature-dependent ionic mobility, changes in the degree of saturation, ion exclusion, surface conduction, and porosity changes. Measurements during hydrate formation and dissociation require careful analysis to properly interpret signatures, in particular when out-of plane conductivity anomalies prevail.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.594-596
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• 2007

Using an oedometer cell instrumented to measure the evolution of electromagnetic properties, small strain stiffness, and temperature, we conducted consolidation tests on four types of sediments. The tested specimens include sediments with different gas hydrate saturation at four stages of loading. The test results show that the electromagnetic and mechanical properties of hydrate-bearing marine sediments are governed by the vertical effective stress, stress history, porosity, hydrate saturation, fabric, ionic concentration of the pore fluid, and temperature. The results also show that permittivity and electrical conductivity data can be combined to estimate hydrate volume fraction in laboratory sediments, methodology that might eventually be extended for estimation of hydrate concentrations in field settings.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.397-406
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• 2012

During the 2nd Ulleung Basin Gas Hydrate Drilling Expedition (UBGH2) in 2010, gas-hydrate-bearing sediment cores were recovered at 10 drill sites. Base, on Infrared (IR) thermal image and grain-size analysis of the cores, three distinct types of gas hydrate are classified: Type I (fracture-filling in mud layers), Type II (disseminated in mud layers), and Type III (pore-filling in sand layers). Types I and II gas hydrates occur in mud as discrete veins, nodules or disseminated particles. Type III fills the pore spaces of the sand layers encased in mud layers. In this case, the sand content of hosting sediments shows a general linear relationship with gas hydrate saturation. The degrees of temperature anomalies (${\Delta}T$) from IR images generally increase with gas hydrate saturation regardless of gas hydrate occurrence types. Type I is dominantly found in the sites where seismic profiles delineate chimney structures, whereas Type II where the drill cores are composed almost of mud layers. Type III was mainly recovered from the sites where hemipelagic muds are frequently intercalated with turbidite sand layers. Our results indicate that gas hydrate occurrence is closely related to sedimentological characteristic of gas hydrate-bearing sediments, that is, grain size distribution.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.156-168
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• 2013

Drilling expedition #1 in 2007 and drilling expedition #2 in 2010 were performed for gas hydrate resources evaluation and optimal site selection of pilot test in Ulleung basin, East Sea, Korea. This study presents to build the 3D spatial distribution models using the estimated sedimentary facies, porosity, and gas hydrate saturation derived by well logs and core analysis data from UBGH1-4, UBGH1-9, UBGH1-10, UBGH1-14, UBGH2-2-1, UBGH2-2-2, UBGH2-6, UBGH2-9, UBGH2-10 and UBGH2-11. The objective of 3D spatial distribution modeling is to build a geological representation of the gas hydrate-bearing sediment that honors the heterogeneity in 3D grid scale. The facies modeling is populating sedimentary facies into a geological grid using sequential indicator simulation. The porosity and gas hydrate saturation modeling used sequential Gaussian simulation to populate properties stochastically into grid cells.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.630-633
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• 2005

Some gases can be formed into hydrate by physical combination with water under appropriate temperature and pressure condition. Besides them, it was found that the pore size of the sediments can affect the formation and dissociation of hydrate. In this study, formation temperatures of carbon dioxide and methane hydrate have been measured using isobaric method to investigate the effects of flow rates of gases on formation condition of hydrate in porous rock samples. The flow rates of gases were controlled using a mass flow controller. To minimize Memory effect, system temperature increased for the dissociation of gas hydrates and re-established the initial saturation. The results show that the formation temperature of hydrate decreases with increasing the injection flow rate of gas. This indicates that the velocity of gas in porous media may act as kinds of inhibitor for the formation of hydrate.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.30 no.9
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• pp.67-75
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• 2014

Methane gas hydrate which is considered energy source for the next generation has an urgent need to develop reliable numerical simulator for coupled THM phenomena in the porous media, to minimize problems arising during the production and optimize production procedures. International collaborations to improve previous numerical codes are in progress, but they still have mismatch in the predicted value and unstable convergence. In this paper, FEM code for fully coupled THM phenomena is developed to analyze methane hydrate dissociation in the porous media. Coupled partial differential equations are derived from four mass balance equations (methane hydrate, soil, water, and hydrate gas), energy balance equation, and force equilibrium equation. Five main variables (displacement, gas saturation, fluid pressure, temperature, and hydrate saturation) are chosen to give higher numerical convergence through trial combinations of variables, and they can analyze the whole region of a phase change in hydrate bearing porous media. The kinetic model is used to predict dissociation of methane hydrate. Developed THM FEM code is applied to the comparative study on a Masuda's laboratory experiment for the hydrate production, and verified for the stability and convergence.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.407-409
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• 2006

Geochemical analyses carried out on samples collected from cores on and near the southern smit of Hydrate Ridge have advanced understanding by providing a clear contrast of the two major modes of marine gas hydrate occurrence. High concentrations (15%-40% of pore space) of gas hydrate occurring at shallow depths (0-40 mbsf) on and near the southern summit are fed by gas migrating from depths of as much as 2km within the accretionary prism. This gas carries a characteristic minor component of C2-C5 thermogenic hydrocarbons that enable tracing of migration pathways and may stabilize the occurrence of some structure II gas hydrate. A structure II wet gas hydrate that is stable to greater depths and temperatures than structure I methane hydrate may account for the deeper, faint second bottom simulating reflection (BSR2) that occurs on the seaward side of the ridge. The wet gas is migrating In an ash/turbidite layer that intersects the base of gas hydrate stability on the seaward side of and directly beneath the southern summit of Hydrate Ridge. The high gas saturation (>65%) of the pore space within this layer could create a two-phase (gas + solid) system that would enable free gas to move vertically upward through the gas hydrate stability zone. Away from the summit of the ridge there is no apparent influx of the gas seeping from depth and sediments are characterized by the normal sequence of early diagenetic processes involving anaerobic oxidation of sedimentary organic matter, initially linked to the reduction of sulfate and later continued by means of carbonate reduction leading to the formation of microbial methane.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.151-151
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• 2011

Large amounts of natural gas, mainly methane, in the form of hydrates are stored on continental margins. When gas hydrates are dissociated by any environmental trigger, generation of excess pore pressure due to released free gas may cause sediment deformation and weakening. Hence, damage on offshore structures or submarine landslide can occur by gas hydrate dissociation. Therefore, geotechnical stability of gas hydrate bearing sediments is in need to be securely assessed. However, geotechnical characteristics of gas hydrates bearing sediments including small-strain elastic moduli have been poorly identified. Synthesizing gas hydrate in natural seabed sediment specimen, which is mainly composed of silty-to-clayey soils, has been hardly attempted due to their low permeability. Moreover, it has been known that hydrate loci in pore spaces and heterogeneity of hydrate growth in specimen scale play a critical role in determining physical properties of hydrate bearing sediments. In the presented study, we synthesized gas hydrate containing sediments in an instrumented oedometric cell. Geotechnical and geophysical properties of gas hydrate bearing sediments including compressibility, small-strain elastic moduli, elastic wave, and electrical resistivity are determined by wave-based techniques during loading and unloading processes. Significant changes in volume change, elastic wave, and electrical resistivity have been observed during formation and dissociation of gas hydrate. Experimental results and analyses reveal that geotechnical properties of gas hydrates bearing sediments are highly governed by hydrate saturation, effective stress, void ratio, and soil types as well as morphological feature of hydrate formation in sediments.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.102-115
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• 2012

The purpose of this paper is to review several different methods calculating gas hydrate saturations. There are three methods using downhole log data, core data (including pressure core), and seismic velocity data. Archie's equation using electrical resistivity of downhole log data is widely used for saturation calculation. In this case, Archie's parameters should be defined accurately. And the occurrence types of gas hydrate significantly affect to saturation calculation. Thus saturation calculation should be carefully conducted. The methods using chlorinity and pressure core data are directly calculated from core sample. So far, the saturation calculated from pressure core gives accurate and quantitative values. But this method is needed much more time and cost. Thus acquisition of the continuous data with sediment depth is realistically hard. The recent several results show that the saturation calculated from resistivity data is the highest values, while the value calculated from pressure core is the lowest. But this trend is not always absolutely. Thus, to estimate accurate gas hydrate saturation, the values calculated from several methods should be compared.