Gas Permeability and Production Potential of Marine Hydrate Deposits in South China Sea

Pengfei Shen, Gang Li, Jiangfeng Liu, Xiaosen Li and Jinming Zhang
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Pengfei Shen: State Key Laboratory of Coal Mine Disaster Dynamics and Control, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
Gang Li: Key Laboratory of Gas Hydrate, Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China
Jiangfeng Liu: State Key Laboratory for GeoMechanics and Deep Underground Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China
Xiaosen Li: State Key Laboratory of Coal Mine Disaster Dynamics and Control, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
Jinming Zhang: Key Laboratory of Gas Hydrate, Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 21, 1-20

Abstract: The permeability of marine sediments is critical to the gas production assessment of hydrate reservoirs. In this work, the sample of natural marine sediments was obtained from Shenhu Area of South China Sea at the depth of 1600 m, and the gas permeability of the sample was measured in the laboratory under various confining pressures. The porosity of the sample decreased from 41.82% to 29.54%, and the effective gas permeability of the sample decreased from 2.638 × 10 −16 m 2 to 0.872 × 10 −16 m 2 as the confining pressure increased from 0 to 23 MPa. The gas permeability of the natural sediments was determined to be 1.535 × 10 −16 m 2 with confining pressure of 15 MPa and porosity of 32%. The deformation of sample in longitudinal direction was sensitive to the confining pressure, and the compressibility in the radial direction was limited. On the basis of the experimental results, the particle size term in the classical Kozeny–Carman equation was revised by correction factor N, and the experimental results fitted well with the curves with N = 2.40. Moreover, the gas production potential at the site of W–17 in the Shenhu Area was numerically studied based on the measured gas permeability. The simulation results showed that the cumulative volume of produced gas was approximately 1.46 × 10 6 ST m 3 after 30 years. A new enlarged permeable well wall method was proposed to improve the poor gas production caused by low permeability. The cumulative gas production increased by 2.7 times as the permeable well wall radius increased from 0 to 5 m. Regarding the gas and water production rates, water production increased with the increase of permeable well wall radius. Spatial distributions of hydrate and gas saturations, pressure, and temperature were investigated as well.

Keywords: gas permeability; natural sediments; gas hydrate; enlarged permeable well wall; South China Sea (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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