BP Conducting Test Drilling Into Methane Hydrate Formation On North Slope - ADN

[hatrack]

BP teamed with government agencies to drill an exploratory well this month that could help unlock a fabulous new supply of North Slope natural gas. The well probed a layer of material just beneath the permafrost, called gas hydrate. The hydrate is a solid, crystalline form of gas, usually methane, mixed in sandstone and water. A combination of cold and pressure keeps the gas as a solid.

Hydrates exist in many locations around the world, including under seabeds. On the North Slope, government geologists estimate there are 450 trillion cubic feet of gas hydrate. That's a staggering volume -- more than 12 times the amount of conventional gas known to exist within Prudhoe Bay and other North Slope oil fields.

For now, however, the hydrate is little more than tantalizing. The industry and government scientists say they first must figure out how to get the frozen gas to the surface, and it's likely to be several more years at least before any is produced commercially.

A test well just completed in BP's Milne Point field, northwest of Prudhoe, yielded much new information that could help lead to commercial production someday, BP and federal geologists and engineers said Monday in Anchorage.

EDIT

http://www.adn.com/money/industries/oil/story/8655248p-8547092c.html

Yeah, that's a great fucking idea. Let's release, uncork or otherwise burn EVEN MORE methane.

[phantom power]

1. My, how fabulous.

[kestrel91316]

2. Well, maybe it's preferable to letting it "bloop" up to the surface

all on its own and escaping into the atmosphere unused..........

Lemons, lemonade, you know?

[phantom power]

3. unless, of course, it *causes* it to bloop up to the surface...

[kestrel91316]

4. Very correct. There's that pesky road to hell again........

[Nihil]

5. Memories of a recent drilling "incident" come flooding back ...

... much like the mud that is *still* flooding out of the hole in Java
that was supposed to produce oil (or was it gas?) ...

[hatrack]

6. Gas was expected when (Surprise!) mud arrived . . .

And continues to do so.