AN INTERAGENCY ROADMAP FOR
METHANE HYDRATE RESEARCH
AND DEVELOPMENT: 2015-2030
Prepared by

The Technical Coordination Teamof the National Methane Hydrate R&D Program

v1: April 11, 2013
v2: May 24, 20130

AN INTERAGENCY ROADMAP FOR
METHANE HYDRATE RESEARCH
AND DEVELOPMENT: 2015-2030

The Interagency Technical Coordination TeamRay Boswell, DOE/National Energy Technology Laboratory (chair)
Richard Coffin, DOD/Naval Research Laboratory
Timothy S. Collett, DOI/U.S. Geological Survey
Matthew Frye, DOI/Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
Bilal Haq, National Science Foundation
Louis Niglio, DOI/Bureau of Land Management
Yongkoo Seol, DOE/National Energy Technology Laboratory
Gene Smith, DOC/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Carolyn Ruppel, DOI/U.S. Geological Survey
Bill Shedd, DOI/Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
Warren Wood, DOD/Naval Research Laboratory

1

Table of Contents
Abbreviations and Acronyms

1.0

Executive Summary

2.0

Background

3.0

The U.S. National Gas Hydrate R&D Program

4.0

Long-Range R&D Roadmaps

5.0

Key Processes

6.0

Program Funding Requirements

7.0

Concluding Remarks

References Cited

NOTE: This plan is currently in draft form, and will be revised as we continue to solicit
input from various stakeholders.

2Abbreviations and Acronyms
ANS – Alaska North Slope

LBNL – Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

BLM – Bureau of Land Management

MHR&D – Methane Hydrate Research and

BOEM – Bureau of Ocean Energy

Development

Management

MMS – Minerals Management Service

COL – Consortium for Ocean Leadership

MPU – Milne Point Unit (Alaska)

CSEM – Controlled Source Electromagnetics

NETL – National Energy Technology

DOE – Department of Energy

Laboratory

DOI – Department of Interior

NGHP – National Gas Hydrate Program

E&P – Exploration and Production(India)EM – Electromagnetic

NIST – National Institute of Standards and

FAC – Federal Advisory Committee

Technology

FWP – Field Work Proposal

NOAA – National Oceanic and Atmospheric

FY – Fiscal Year

Administration

GHSZ – Gas Hydrate Stability Zone

NRL – Naval Research Lab

GMGS – Guangzhou Marine Geological

NSF – National Science Foundation

SurveyPTSC – Pressure-Temperature Coring

GOM – Gulf of Mexico

System

HRC – Hyace Rotary Corer

PSC – Pressure Coring System

ICC – Interagency Coordination Committee

R&D – Research and Development

ICGH – International Conference on Gas

TCT – Technical Coordination Team

Hydrates

UBGH – Ulleung Basin Gas Hydrate

IODP – Integrated Ocean Drilling Program

USGS – United States Geological Survey

IPTC – Integrated Pressure Temperature
Chamber
JIP – Joint Industry Project

3

1.0

Executive Summary

This Interagency Roadmap for Methane Hydrate Research and Development is a joint
effort of representatives of the Department of Energy (DOE), the Department of Interior(the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management(BOEM), and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)), the Department of Defense (theNaval Research Laboratory (NRL)), the Department of Commerce (the National Oceanicand Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)), and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
This roadmap outlines a plan of action to address the science and technology
development goals originally articulated in the Methane Hydrate Research andDevelopment Act of 2000 (the MHR&D Act) as amended in Section 968 of Public Law
109-58, 30 USC 1902 (The Energy Policy Act of 2005).
This document is an update to an earlier
Interagency Roadmap (published in June,
2006), and reviews 1) the progress andfindings of the interagency research anddevelopment (R&D) program to date, withemphasis on accomplishments over the past
six years, 2) the long-term goals and key
intermediate milestones for the program,and 3) the program’s general structure andmanagement philosophy. This plan, unlike
the earlier Roadmap, addresses the nature ofwork that can be done assuming program
budgets that are consistent at FY2012/2013
enacted levels. This roadmap retains the
MHR&D Act’s emphasis on supporting the determination and realization of gas
hydrate’s energy supply potential and the potential environmental impacts of gas hydrate
production, while continuing to address important gas hydrate research questions such as

1the nature of associated geohazards, and gas hydrate’s role in global carbon cycling andclimate change.
This roadmap recognizes the profound changes in the U.S. energy industry since 2006,
including the decreasing ability of the major private sector companies to support longrange R&D addressing gas supply. These changes only further support the need forfederal funding given the long-range, high-risk, high-impact nature of the research.
Gas hydrate R&D continues to advance rapidly, driven by a series of major drilling
programs conducted since 2005, both in deepwater (Gulf of Mexico JIP, 2005 and 2009;
IODP Leg 311, 2005; India, 2006; China, 2007; Korea, 2007 and 2010) and arctic(Alaska, 2007 and 2011/12; Canada (Mallik), 2007/08) settings. These programs
continue to reveal the natural complexity and heterogeneity of gas hydrate geologic
systems. Furthermore, there have been numerous studies since 2006 have integrated gas
hydrates into climate change hindcasts and forecasts and attempted to quantify theamount of methane emitted by dissociating gas hydrates in the past, present, and future.
While the 2006 Roadmap’s goal of demonstrating commercial viability of marine gas
hydrates through field production tests is no longer considered to be within the budgetary
realities of the U.S. National Gas Hydrate R&D Program, the agencies will work tofurther constrain the resource potential of gas hydrates in both the arctic and in the U.S.
deepwater through improved understanding of resource volumes and reservoir
characteristics. We also will strive to document the impact of natural environmental
changes on the stability of gas hydrate as well as any feedbacks hydrate dissociation may
have for ongoing climate change.
The Department of Energy, as the lead federal agency in the U.S. National Gas Hydrate
R&D Program, will continue to support the integration of methane hydrate R&D ongoing
within the various agency efforts. Furthermore, the cooperating agencies will continue tofocus their efforts towards aligned public outreach so that all program stakeholders canhave timely and accurate information on program results and status. DOE, in its role as
primary sponsor of extramural R&D, will repeatedly review its efforts to ensure program
quality, transparency, and relevance through external peer review and other means. We2will work with all our partners to collaborate with researchers from around the world toleverage the benefits of significant R&D programs in other countries. Finally, we will
manage our work to ensure that the nation’s best talents, including industry, academia,
and government, are brought to bear on the most critical issues in the field of naturallyoccurring gas hydrate. This roadmap is designed to maintain the U.S. as a global leader
in the science of natural gas hydrate.

3

2.0

Background

Methane hydrate is a natural form of “clathrate”; unique substances in which moleculesof one material (in this case, water) form a rigid lattice that encloses appropriately-sizedmolecules of another material (in this case, predominantly methane). Research during thepast three decades has revealed that gas hydrate exists both as a void-filling material
within shallow sediments (both onshore in the arctic and within deep-water continental
margins) as well as massive “mounds” (often in association with unique chemosynthetic
biota) on deep sea floors. Once thought to be relatively rare in nature, gas hydrate is now
widely considered to store immense volumes of organic carbon, and to have had asignificant impact on the global environment at many times during the Earth’s history.
Nonetheless, despite the recent increase in scientific drilling programs, the vast majorityof potential gas hydrate occurrences world-wide remain unexplored.
A major driver for the U.S. National Gas Hydrate R&D Program (hereafter called “theProgram”) is the effort to fully understand the geologic controls on the occurrence of gas
hydrate in sediments in various settings, and the potential response of those deposits toexternal perturbations, either natural or induced. With respect to gas hydrate resource
issues, this effort will require determination of the necessary conditions for a deposit tobe considered a viable production target, confirmation of significant resource volumes
within such accumulations, the development of new tools for gas hydrate detection andcharacterization from remote sensing data, further fundamental advances in thedetermination of the key physical properties of hydrate-bearing sediments, and the use ofnumerical simulators to improve prediction of the dynamic behavior of gas hydrate
reservoirs and bounding sediments under alternative production scenarios. The Program
will closely monitor global R&D, and will seek to test evolving concepts of gas hydrate
production potential through future interactions with international and private ventures,as opportunities arise. With respect to environmental implications of gas hydrate, theprogram will work to better understand the occurrence of gas hydrate in the environments
most prone to significant environmental change, as well the potential response of those
hydrates to change over various timeframes. The ultimate goal is to provide sound4

science which will enable more informed policy decisions regarding energy supply,
geohazard management, and environmental protection.
2.1

The Nature of Gas Hydrate R&D

As recently as the 1980s, few scientists considered methane hydrate to be a significant
part of the natural environment. Consequently, the bulk of prior gas hydrate research was
related to the inhibition of spontaneous gas hydrate formation in oil and gas pipelines andother production equipment (“flow assurance”). However, beginning in the late 1960s,
observations and interpretations provided primarily by Russian researchers indicated thatgas hydrate could be very abundant in nature. A series of deepwater scientific drilling
expeditions through the 1970s and 1980s corroborated this view, leading to a scientificconsensus that gas hydrate deposits serve as a major global storehouse of organic carbon.
The study of naturally-occurring gas hydrate is highly complex. The ability to create
laboratory samples of gas hydrate within natural sediments that mimic those found innature is improving, but remains a challenge. The most reliable and effective route tounderstanding the occurrence and nature of gas hydrate is through field studies.
However, deepwater marine drilling expeditions are costly, and the inherent instability ofgas hydrates upon removal from in situ temperature and pressure regimes has required
development of specialized equipment to recover, preserve, and analyze natural samples.
Such tools are only now becoming tested, reliable, and widely available. In contrast, thedevelopment of technologies to maximize data collection through down-holemeasurement devices is an increasing priority.
Despite all the progress of the past several years, there is still much to learn about thedetails of gas hydrate occurrence and behavior in nature. As we expand our knowledge
base beyond the very few existing, well-studied sites, new findings are expected that willcontinue to require studies that are wide-ranging, complex, and multi-disciplinary;
incorporating elements engineering, geology, geophysics, geochemistry, hydrology,
microbiology, oceanography, physics, and other disciplines.

5

2.2

The Federal Role in Gas Hydrate R&D

The federal government has a recognized role in addressing key failures of markets todeliver R&D with the potential to significantly promote the public good. Industry has
invested greatly in addressing flow assurance issues related to gas hydrates that form
spontaneously within production and transmission pipelines; however, private sector
spending on gas hydrate resource and environmental issues remains very limited and not
well aligned with the potential public benefit. Furthermore, with the recent expansion in
unconventional natural gas resource recoverability in the U.S., as well as heightened
focus on minimizing operational risks by dedicating personnel and resources to corebusiness activities, industry’s ability to facilitate publically-funded R&D through the
public-private partnerships that characterized the first decade of the Program hassignificantly declined. However, increased use of natural gas in all sectors of the U.S.
economy, as well as in the increasing potential for the export of U.S. natural gas, suggestthat the need for additional supply options may only become more acute. Gas hydrate
remains a primary potential option for securing natural gas’ promise as a long-term
bridge to the sustainable energy supplies of the future. But to be available then, thescience and technology development needed to assess both energy resource potential andpotential environmental implications, should be conducted now.
While U.S. public investment in gas hydrate research has remained modest over the past
five years, international interest continues to grow rapidly. The government of Japan has
recently conducted the first marine production test, and has announced plans for further,more expansive tests. South Korea and India continue to plan and conduct deepwater gas
hydrate evaluation programs as well. China is currently conducting an extensive marine
gas hydrate exploration expedition.
2.3

Recent Advances in Gas Hydrate R&D

Since the publication of the 2006 Roadmap, gas hydrates R&D has continued toaccelerate, with many significant findings (for recent reviews of research status, seeCollett et al., 2009; Paull et al., 2010; Boswell, 2011; Ruppel, 2011 and the references

6

cited therein). The following describes recent key events and R&D findings and theirimplications for the Program going forward.
2.3.1 Major Field Programs: Progress in gas hydrate R&D is dominated by complex
studies conducted in the field. Since 2005, a number of major expeditions have occurred,providing new opportunities to gain fundamental insights on gas hydrate systems throughthe comparison of gas hydrate occurrence across a wide range of geologic settings.
IODP Expedition 311: Cascadia Margin, Northeast Pacific Ocean (2005): The Integrated
Ocean Drilling Program is an international consortium that conducts scientific drillingusing a variety of vessels including the JOIDES Resolution. Expedition 311 was
conducted to build upon the results of several earlier programs (including ODP Leg 204,
2003) that investigated gas hydrate systems within the accretionary wedge sediments off
the coast of the North American Pacific Northwest. IODP X311 consisted of a four-holetransect across the continental slope, as well as a fifth location targeting a known cold
vent site. The expedition provided further confirmation of an emerging consensus thatthe nature and distribution of gas hydrate occurrence within the GHSZ is highly
heterogeneous and is perhaps most strongly controlled by 1) the nature of the hostlithology (with gas hydrate present preferentially within the sand units and largely
lacking from the intervening muds) and 2) complex issues related to varying methanesolubility in pore water.
Expedition NGHP-01: Indian Ocean (2006): In 2006, the Indian government, withtechnical leadership provided by the USGS and with the support of scientists from dozens
of leading research groups worldwide including the DOE, conducted a 113-day
exploratory expedition at more than 20 sites in the Bay of Bengal, Andaman Islands, andArabian Sea. The expedition, as reported in Collett et al. (2006, 2008a), collected morenatural gas hydrate samples than all previous expeditions combined, and generously
shared those samples with researchers around the globe. Pressure coring and pressurecore analysis and imaging technologies made major leaps forward in this expedition,achieving unprecedented recovery rates and never-before-seen images of the detailed
structure of gas hydrates in marine sediments. Perhaps most notably, the expedition7

uncovered a major gas hydrate accumulation at “Site 10” within the Krishna-Godovaribasin: a 130-meter-thick concentration of gas hydrate in variety of modes (disseminated,large nodules, thin veins and fracture fills, all within a fine-grained matrix). The
occurrence of such relatively rich accumulations (perhaps 30% gas hydrate saturation)
within fine-grained sediments had not been previously appreciated.
“Mt Elbert” Gas Hydrate Stratigraphic Test Well: Milne Point, Alaska (2007): In
February, 2007, the U.S. DOE, BP Alaska Exploration, Inc., the USGS, and numerous
other organizations participated in a scientific drilling and data collection program within
the Milne Point Unit (MPU) on the Alaska North Slope (ANS). In addition todemonstrating the ability to conduct safe and efficient scientific data collection programs
within an area of ongoing industry activity, the drilling confirmed the soundness of thegeophysical techniques employed by the USGS in delineating and characterizing fourteen
discrete gas hydrate accumulations in the MPU. Analyses of log, core, and downholepressure response data enabled the international team of researchers to interpret thenature, evolution, petrophysical properties (including in situ permeability in the presenceof gas hydrate), and potential production behavior of typical Alaska North Slope gas
hydrate reservoirs (see 24 papers compiled in Boswell et al., eds., 2011). These data
were key inputs into the 2008 DOI gas hydrate assessment for the ANS (Collett et al.,2008b) discussed below.
Expedition GMGS-01: South China Sea (2007): The Guangzhou Marine Geological
Survey (GMGS) of China staged GMGS-01 in the spring of 2007. The expedition
drilled, logged, cored, and pressure-cored at nine sites in the South China Sea (Zhang etal., 2008). Among the primary findings reported was the discovery (at three sites) of
unexpectedly-high concentrations of gas hydrate (30% or more) at the base of the GHSZ
in undeformed and fine-grained sediments. Initial interpretations suggest that this levelof gas hydrate concentration may have been enabled by the high abundance of
foraminifera in the sediments, a phenomenon previously seen at the Blake Ridge. A
second marine expedition is planned for offshore China in early 2013.

8

Expedition UBGH-01 and 02: East Sea - Korea (2007 and 2010): The Korean Gas
Hydrate Development Organization (GHDO) has conducted, with support from the
USGS and the DOE, two drilling, logging, and coring expeditions in the Ulleung basin of
the East Sea. The 2007 expedition encountered gas hydrate in three wells, with GH
occurring in a variety of forms, including both as pore-fill and as thick sequences
dominated by grain-displacing, gas-hydrate-filled fractures (Park et al., 2008). One
major accumulation (similar in nature to NGHP-01 Site 10) contained over 130 m offracture-filling gas hydrate in fine-grained sediments. A second expedition in 2010
further confirmed the wide-scale occurrence of gas-hydrate-bearing “chimney structures”
in the East Sea, and also established several minor occurrences of gas hydrate in sandreservoirs, which are presently being further evaluated as potential sites for field
production testing operations (Lee et al., 2011).
Mallik production well test program: Northwest Territories, Canada (2007 & 2008): The
Japanese MH-21 program, in collaboration with Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and
Aurora College, revisited the site of the 1998 and 2002 Mallik efforts (Dallimore andCollett, 2005) to conduct gas hydrate drilling and testing programs in the winters of 2007
and 2008. These programs, as reported in Dallimore et al., (2012) clearly confirmed thetechnical feasibility of GH production through depressurization. The test suggested thatthe reservoirs had the potential to exceed the productivity predictions of current
numerical models through enhanced permeability related to production-related
deformation and natural heterogeneities.
Gulf of Mexico Joint Industry Project Leg II (2009): In April 2009, the DOE-Chevron
Gas Hydrates Joint Industry Project (the JIP) conducted logging-while-drilling operationsat seven wells at three sites in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. The program successfully
deployed the most advanced LWD tool string used thus far within the deepest and mosttechnically-challenging scientific wells yet attempted in a marine gas hydrate program.
The exploration method that guided the selection of the drill sites was unique in thehistory of gas hydrate investigation in that it was based on a geological and geophysicalprospecting approach that integrated direct geophysical evidence of gas hydrate-bearing
strata with assessment of the extent of gas hydrate stability conditions, and the existence9

of gas sources, desired reservoir lithologies (sands), and gas migration pathways linking
sources and reservoirs. Six of the seven wells drilled confirmed pre-drill predictions, withfour discovering gas hydrates at saturations of 50% to 80% in multiple sand horizons andtwo others documenting gas hydrates in sand reservoirs at low saturations (see 14 papers
compiled in Collett and Boswell, eds., 2012).
“Ignik Sikumi” Field Trial, Prudhoe Bay Unit, Alaska (2011/2012): In 2011,
ConocoPhillips, in partnership with DOE, drilled, logged, and conducted wirelinepressure tests throughout the gas hydrate sediments below the base of permafrost at site
adjacent to the PBU L-pad within the westend Prudhoe Bay Unit (Schoderbek et al.,2012). The logging program confirmed the occurrence of gas hydrate at the site inmultiple reservoirs and, when combined with data from prior wells drilled from the Lpad, provided unique confirmation of the structural geometry of multiple gas-hydratebearing sands. The data obtained in the logging program was then used to guide planning
for a field trial of gas hydrate reservoir response to gas injection. The program
successfully injected a mixture of CO2 and N2 gas into a 30-foot thick sand with high gas
hydrate saturation. Flowback was accomplished via reservoir depressurization in threephases: 1) at pressure draw-downs above that necessary to initiate dissociation of gas
hydrate, in which CH4, CO2, and N2 were recovered, 2) at pressures approximating gas
hydrate dissociation conditions, in which CH4 was recovered, and 3) at pressuressufficient to dissociate native hydrate, in which CH4 was recovered over a period of 19days at stable and gradually increasing rates. The data from this test were released to thescientific community in March, 2013.
MH-21 Nankai Trough Production Test (2012/2013): In 2012, the MH-21 program
conducted drilling and coring programs in the Nankai Trough to establish the geologic
conditions and to install monitoring wells and equipment, as well as the top hole for theworld’s first deepwater gas hydrate production test (Yamamoto et al., 2012). In March,
2013, the drill ship Chikyu completed the test well, and achieved six days of production
at a reported average rate of 700,000 scf/d (JOGMEC, 2013). MH-21 announced plans toproceed with the offshore testing phase of its program, which will feature a longerduration deepwater flow test, perhaps in early CY2015.

10Additional International Surveys: In addition to the extensive drilling programs listed
above, there have been several international programs initiated to collect background dataon gas hydrate occurrence in nature via geophysical, heat flow, and shallow geochemical
surveys. Taiwan, for example, has conducted extensive studies in preparation for
exploratory drilling (Wang et al., 2009). Methane hydrate evaluation has also continued
on the Hikurangi Margin, eastern coast of New Zealand (Pecher et al., 2011; Hamdan etal., 2011). Field programs to assess gas-hydrate climate interactions have also been
conducted in the Gulf of Mexico and throughout the Arctic, including the East Siberian
Arctic Shelf, the Beaufort/Mackenzie Shelf, and the Svalbard margin. These expeditions
commonly feature a range of geophysical surveys from ships and AUVs, water and air
sampling, and shallow piston coring/geochemical studies to understand the occurrence
and dynamics of methane. Plans to further constrain the nature and occurrence of gas
hydrates in these environments through drilling programs are in development.
2.3.2 Gas Hydrate Sampling and Analysis Capabilities: The effort to understand thenature of gas-hydrate-bearing sediments through drilling program is central to gas
hydrate science, and requires the capacity to effectively recover and analyze natural
samples. This effort is challenging, as gas hydrate is not stable at surface conditions, andeven the most sophisticated sampling technologies can impart significant disturbances tosediments. However, with each field program, substantial improvements are achieved inboth well logging/well log analysis and pressure coring technology/pressure core
analysis. In 2012, Japan deployed a new pressure-core system specifically designed tocore sand reservoirs with high gas hydrate saturations with success. In early 2013,
Georgia Tech and the USGS, worked in tandem with the GOM JIP to successfully deploy
an array of analytical devices (Santamarina et al., 2012) to conduct advanced testing on
recovered pressure cores during a collaborative program conducted with AIST and
JOGMEC in Japan early in 2013. A further generation of the new tool is currently indevelopment by several international R&D programs, including the Gulf of Mexico JIP,
with expected delivery by end of CY2013. This tool will then be transferred by the DOE
to a group that can make the tool available to support gas hydrate R&D globally.

11

To supplement the work that can be done with the highly-limited number of natural
samples, the 2006 Roadmap identified the capability to produce representative synthetic
samples of gas-hydrate-bearing sediments for laboratory study, and to conduct laboratory
studies that are more relevant to field problems, as a critical research need. Sample
creation and characterization is complex, particularly for fine-grained samples, and isalso very time-consuming should the preferred method of sample creation utilize gas
hydrate formation from methane dissolved in water. Significant improvements in thesetechniques have occurred, and are currently being further developed (Waite et al., 2010).
2.3.3 Gas Hydrate Geophysical Characterization: A critical goal of gas hydratescience is the ability to collect data via various geophysical methods that can be
confidently analyzed to determine the abundance and distribution of gas hydrates overlarge areas in advance of extensive drilling. Such tools would greatly advance our ability
to assess gas hydrate environmental, geohazard, and energy resource, implications. A
major effort conducted in Japan (Saeki et al., 2008) indicated that concentrated zones ofgas hydrate in marine settings could be delineated with greater certainty where strong
amplitudes of appropriate polarity are found coincident with evidence of increased
internal acoustic velocities, and geologic evidence of sand-prone lithofacies. Lee et al.,2009 described improved rock physics models for the characterization of gas hydrate
accumulations and used these models to correctly predict gas hydrate saturations inadvance of drilling at the Mt. Elbert site. Shelander et al. (2012) reviewed themethodology and results used in the successful pre-drill prediction of gas hydrate
occurrence from industry-standard 3-D seismic data. Bottom-simulating reflectors(BSRs), which had prior formed the basis for much global gas hydrate exploration, werealso seen as a positive, yet not fully reliable, indicator of the presence of concentrated gas
hydrate. Shedd et al, (2012) provide an exhaustive review of “BSRs” and similar featuresin the Gulf of Mexico, their relation to the nature of the local gas hydrate geologic
system, and the significance of various manifestations of the BGHS on seismic data inprospecting for concentrated gas hydrate. In early 2013, a collaborative USGS-DOEBOEM seismic data acquisition program collected a range of geophysical data, including
the first advanced, multi-component, ocean-bottom seismic data at a location withcomprehensive well log data through the hydrate-bearing sediments. In addition to12expanding the use of seismic data, effort has continued to evaluate the potential
contribution of controlled-source electromagnetic (EM) surveys for characterization ofmarine gas hydrate deposits.
2.3.4 Assessment of Global Gas Hydrate Occurrence: After three decades ofcontemplation of the issue, no clear consensus of the magnitude of potential in-place
volumes of methane in hydrate form has emerged. While it appears that a minimum
value on the order of 100,000 tcf is likely (Boswell and Collett, 2011), studies continue toappear that are not always easily reconciled with field data. Fortunately, total in-placeresource volumes are likely not highly relevant to the first-order research issues facing
the gas hydrate community. As a result, assessment is evolving to the more practicalissues of understanding resource volumes in specific settings that have direct relevance tolocal and/or regional energy, climate, or geohazard issues.
The 2006 Roadmap used the gas hydrate resource pyramid to illustrate the segregation of
global resource volumes into broad categories that relate to potential gas recoverability.
This concept has subsequently supported attempts to quantify that portion of gas hydrate
global resources that may be amenable to extraction with existing technologies; withrecent estimates on the order of 40,000 tcf (Johnson, 2012). An effort to identify
potential volumes in areas that are most sensitive to climate change (Ruppel, 2011)
similarly suggests that only a small portion (perhaps 5% of total global resources) is
directly relevant to that issue. Further, it appears that these two portions of the total gas
resource base are mutually-exclusive, providing no justification for linking the separate
gas hydrate climate and resource issues beyond the most basic fundamental science issues(Boswell and Collett, 2011). Regionally, three major efforts, two in the U.S., and one inJapan, have provided the first systematic attempts to quantify gas hydrate resource
volumes. Similar gas hydrate resource assessment efforts are also underway in Korea,
China, and India.
Gas Hydrate Occurrence in the Nankai trough: In 2008, the Japanese MH-21 program
released an estimate of 40 tcf gas in-place within a 5,000-sq. mile area of the Nankai
trough off the southeastern coast of Japan (Fujii et al., 2008). Of that total, 20 tcf was13

assessed to occur within 10 high-concentration accumulations within fine-grained
turbiditic sand reservoirs. Fujii et al. (2008) reported that this area represents only 10% of
the total area around Japan that is prospective for gas hydrates.
Gas Hydrate Occurrence in the U.S. OCS: As part of its ongoing mission to assess thenation’s potential energy resources, the BOEM has been pursuing an assessment of gas
hydrate resource throughout the U.S. OCS. The initial report (Frye, 2008) detailed themethodology of a cell-based, probabilistic assessment of in-place gas hydrate resources in
the Gulf of Mexico. This assessment took full advantage of BOEM’s extensive well andseismic databases, as well as the latest scientific insights on the controls of GH
occurrence, ", including particular consideration of issues such as methane generation
capacity, lateral distribution of shallow salt bodies, and reservoir lithology." The report
indicated a mean estimate of 21,444 tcf gas in-place in hydrate form with one-third ofthat volume (6,711 tcf mean value) assessed as occurring as pore-filling gas hydrate inhigh-saturations in sand-dominated reservoirs. In 2012, the BOEM (BOEM, 2012)
released the initial findings for gas hydrate gas-in-place volumes throughout the US
Lower-48 OCS, including mean estimates for both the Atlantic OCS (21,702 tcfg ) and
Pacific OCS (8,192 tcfg). When combined with the earlier GOM estimate, the BOEM
reports a total U.S. Lower-48 mean estimate of 51,338 tcfg. Given the relative lack ofdata for the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, these assessments utilize a monte carlo approachthat returns a statistical distribution of results, thus incorporating the relatively highdegree of modeling uncertainty into the reported results.
Gas Hydrate Occurrence on the Alaska North Slope (ANS): In late 2008, the USGS
(Collett et al., 2008a), in collaboration with the BLM, delivered the first estimate oftechnically-recoverable gas hydrate resources anywhere in the world. The geologicallybased assessment followed standard USGS approaches developed to assess conventional
oil and gas resources, including prediction of the expected size and number of individual
gas hydrate accumulations. The existence of such accumulations, and confirmation of theability to reliably characterize them through geological and geophysical analyses, hadbeen validated in 2007 by the successful drilling of two gas hydrate accumulations
predicted by the USGS to be present at the Mount Elbert site in the Milne Point Unit. In

14total, the USGS reported that roughly 85 tcf of natural gas exists in gas hydrate across the
ANS. Most notably, this resource is determined to be recoverable using existing
exploration and production (E&P) technologies. The commercial recoverability of thisresource will ultimately depend on the development of methods to achieve commercial
production rates, as well as the future expansion of transportation and utilization options
for ANS gas.
2.3.5 Gas Hydrate Exploration Technologies: A critical element of the 2006
Roadmap was the further application of an integrated approach to gas hydratecharacterization that applies conventional concepts of petroleum systems prospecting to
the specific case of gas hydrates (Collett et al., 2009). This approach is built on thedetermination that the most favorable targets for exploration are sand-dominated systems.
Therefore, the exploration approach integrates geologic-geophysical evidence for gas
sources, gas migration pathways, and suitable reservoir lithologies, with direct
geophysical evidence for the occurrence of charged reservoirs. Direct evidence includes
well-organized, high-amplitude events of appropriate polarity within sand-prone facies
within the gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ). Such events may be associated withseismic phase reversals where stratigraphic units cross the base of the GHSZ. An initialconfirmation of this approach was afforded by the 2007 BP-DOE-USGS “Mt. Elbert” test
well which confirmed pre-drill geologic-geophysical predictions (see Boswell et al., 2011and papers contained therein). In the marine environment, from 2006-2008 federal andindustry scientists collaborating with the Chevron-DOE Gulf of Mexico JIP conducted
extensive pre-drill evaluations of existing geophysical data to estimate the lateral extent
and degree of saturation of gas hydrate prospects at three Gulf of Mexico sites. Seven
wells were drilled at three of these sites in early 2009, with drilling results being in closealignment with pre-drill predictions in four of the five wells drilled (see Collett andBoswell, eds., 2012 and papers contained therein). The approach used in these programs
is now being widely adopted throughout the international gas hydrate R&D community.
2.3.6 Gas Hydrate Production Technologies: Three primary classes of production
methods historically have been considered with respect to subsurface gas hydrates:
thermal stimulation, depressurization, and chemical injection. Prior to the 2006

15

Roadmap, a series of successful scientific experiments conducted at the Mallik site inarctic Canada (1998 and 2002) had confirmed that thermal stimulation is likely to beineffective at commercial scale. However, short duration pressure response tests had
indicated that gas hydrate reservoirs likely contain sufficient reservoir permeability andmobile fluids to enable depressurization. As result, the 2006 Roadmap identified a longterm production test as one of the critical next steps in advancing gas hydrate research.
Critical progress toward such as test was achieved with the 2007 BPXA-DOE-USGS“Mt. Elbert” program, which confirmed reservoir geologic and engineering parameters aswell as demonstrated the feasibility of staging a scientific field program within an area of
ongoing oil and gas production. A major milestone was achieved the following year
(2008) at a Japanese-Canadian research program at the Mallik site with the demonstrationof six days of sustained and stable production through reservoir depressurization at theThis test has been described as “proof of concept” for the production of gas fromnaturally-occurring gas hydrates through depressurization. These data from this field
program has recently been released to the broader scientific community (see Dallimore etal., 2013, and papers contained within).
In 2010, plans for a long-term depressurization test from an established production
facility on the Alaska North Slope, including an initial trial of chemical exchange, weredeveloped through collaboration of the DOE, the USGS, and ANS operators (Collett etal., 2012). When those plans were aborted late in FY2010 due to specific legal
restrictions on the planned operator, BPXA, the program worked with the Prudhoe Bay
partners to secure approvals for ConocoPhillips to conduct a field trail of chemical
exchange technology (the “Ignik Sikumi” project) from a temporary ice pad. Operations
were conducted over two seasons, with drilling and logging occurring in 2011
(ConocoPhillips-DOE) and testing occurring in 2012 (ConocoPhillips-DOE-JOGMEC)(Schoderbek et al, 2012). These data were provided to the scientific community in early
2013, and, in combination with the 2008 Mallik test data, are expected to enable for arange of scientific learnings that will inform the design of future field tests.
In March 2013, following extensive pre-site characterization work and installation ofnumerous monitoring devices on the seafloor, in the water column, and in neighboring16

monitoring wells (Nagakubo et al., 2011), Japan’s MH-21 program conducted the initial
deepwater gas hydrate field production tests. Initial press releases from METI indicatethat ~6 days of depressurization induced flow from turbiditic sands at a total depth of~1300 meters in ~1000 meters of water depth was achieved, with ~700,000 scf/d of gas
production (4.2 mmcf) observed.
Given the relative paucity of field test data and the limited duration of the tests completed
to date, very little is conclusively known about the potential commerciality of production.
Recent simulations that incorporate full geologic complexity have reported promisingmaximum production rates (Gaddapati and Anderson, 2012). However, numerous
technical challenges exist (Hancock et al., 2008; Boswell, 2011), including potential
production hazards associated with the relatively shallow occurrence of producing
horizons, and the lack of consolidation of both the reservoirs and the overburden,
particularly in deepwater settings. Consideration of these geohazards are expected tofocus initial gas hydrate exploration and production to the most geomechanically-stablesettings, which include the more technically-viable, deeply buried, sand-rich,accumulations (Boswell and Collett, 2011).
2.3.7 Gas Hydrate Reservoir Numerical Simulation: Modeling of the response of gashydrate-bearing sediments to environmental changes and/or simulated production will be
critical to the effective planning and interpretation of field investigations. Major
developments have been made within many of the leading computer codes, and a public
source code (HYDRATE RES-SIM) has been made available via the NETL website. The
TOUGH+/HYDRATE code (LBNL), has increasing capability to assess geomechanicalphenomena related to production-related destabilization via coupling with the FLAC 3Dcode (Rutqvist et al., 2008), has tackled increasingly complex studies using field data
(Reagan et al., 2012) and has also been used to model GH response to environmental
changes over long-time scales (Reagan and Moridis, 2008). The STOMP-Hydrate codedeveloped at the Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL) produced the initial simulationsof gas hydrate production via CO2 injection and CH4-CO2 exchange (White et al., 2011).
HYDRATE-RES-SM has been utilized to conduct complex simulations of reservoir
response to depressurization utilizing detailed geologic characterizations of known Gulf

17

of Mexico gas hydrate reservoirs and their associated “seals” (Myshakin et al., 2012).
All codes, including those used in the Japanese MH-21 program, have benefitted greatly
from the formation of an international gas hydrate code comparison working group
coordinated by NETL. This effort completed and reported on a set of six sharedanalyses of fundamental modeling problems, resulting in substantial improvements toeach of the models that only a controlled and comparative process could provide (Wilder
et al., 2008; Anderson et al., 2011).
2.3.8 Gas Hydrates and Industrial Geohazards: Current “industrial” gas hydraterelated geohazards relate primarily to oil and gas production activities and can be
categorized as 1) shallow foundational issues related to the installation of infrastructure inareas of shallow sub-seafloor gas hydrates; 2) shallow drilling and well-installation
hazards that are encountered by wells targeting deeper horizons (“drilling through”), and3) long-term hazards associated with producing warm hydrocarbons from deeper zones
through shallow gas hydrate-bearing intervals (“producing through”). The TCT
recognizes a significant past contribution from the federal R&D to the issue of drillingthough hydrates (see McConnell et al., 2012 for a review) and believes industry is themost appropriate entity to specifically address these issues going forward. However,federal engagement in such studies would clearly advance our collective understanding of
the nature and behavior of gas hydrates in nature (and under specific gas-hydrate
production scenarios), and should be encouraged and enabled where feasible.
2.3.9 Gas Hydrates and Natural Geohazards: A primary naturally-occurringgeohazard associated with gas hydrate is seafloor instability related to gas hydratedissociation, which releases free gas and excess pore water that results in significant pore
fluid volume expansion that can substantially reduce the geomechanical stability of thehost sediments. Natural phenomena such as pressure decline due to sea-level drop or
temperature rise due to changes in climate or oceanic conditions, can create intervals ofpotential sediment weakness at the BGHS. The association of large-scale slide eventsand dissociation of gas hydrates has been investigated over the past decade through field
investigations at the Storegga (offshore Norway: Kvalstad et al., 2005) and at Cape Fear
(U.S. Atlantic Coast: Hornbach et al., 2007), however, to date, these studies have not18

confirmed a significant role for gas-hydrate dissociation. While the case for major past
episodes of globally-synchronized gas-hydrate-related sea-floor failures remain poorly
supported with available data, gas hydrate likely does play a role in certain local seafloor
failures (for example, see Lopez et al, 2011). Gas venting may also be a geohazard, andcan occur in many marine settings. These events are possibly triggered by free gas
accumulations that exceed some critical overpressure at a horizon of reduced sedimentpermeability, possibly at the base of the gas hydrate stability zone. Perhaps the mostcompelling evidence reported in the recent literature are the “pingo-like features”
observed on the shallow Beaufort Shelf, arctic Canada, that have been interpreted toreflect gas and sediment expulsion associated with ongoing destabilization of permafrostassociated gas hydrate related to post ice-age shelf inundation (see Paull et al., 2007).
Many chimney-type structures are found to have a central core of gas hydrate (Ryu et al.,2010) suggesting that gas hydrate formation may have a role in mediating the flow of gas
through such features, although the processes are not well understood.
2.3.10 Gas Hydrate and Global Climate: Despite limited budgets, the program has
worked to initiate study of the linkages between gas hydrate, long-term global carbon
cycling and short-term response to global climate change. The program funded (in 2007)
an effort with the Lawrence Berkeley and Los Alamos national labs to link the leading
gas hydrate and global climate models in assessing the response of marine GH systems tofuture changes in ocean bottom-water temperature (Reagan and Moridis, 2008). Initial
results of the effort confirmed prevailing views (Kvenvolden, 1988) that low-latitude
marine systems are likely too well buffered to respond to potential climate change
scenarios in the relative near-term, but that high-latitude systems deserved further study.
In 2008, four new projects were selected, with an additional five selected in 2012, which
include field and modeling studies to better constrain the nature of methane flux in arange of settings, including the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, offshore California,
thermokarst lakes on the ANS, and on the shallow-water U.S. Beaufort Shelf. At present,
there appears to be minimal risk of significant exacerbation of near-term climate change
through gas hydrate dissociation (Ruppel, 2011), although this determination requires
further confirmation.

19

3.0

The U.S. National Gas Hydrate R&D ProgramThis interagency roadmap for methane hydrate R&D was developed by members of theTechnical Coordinating Team (TCT), including representatives of all federal agencies
whose missions requires the study of naturally-occurring gas hydrate: the Department ofEnergy (DOE), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management (BOEM), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the National Oceanicand Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), andthe National Science Foundation (NSF). Together these agencies, in collaboration with
our numerous research partners in academia, industry, state/local governments, and the
DOE National Lab system, constitute the broader U.S. National Gas Hydrates R&D
Program.
Each federal agency participating in this coordinated effort independently prioritizes andconducts its own efforts as they pursue their individual organizational missions. The
purpose of the TCT is to ensure that these efforts are planned and conducted with fullcommunication between the various federal groups to reduce redundancies and maximize
synergies. This Roadmap, specifically, describes how the U.S. Department of Energy
works to achieve the goals of the MHR&D Act by 1) facilitating the integration ofactivities and scientific finding throughout the U.S. National gas hydrates effort, 2)
working to develop this statement of shared long-term goals and R&D priorities, and 3)
framing a portfolio of projects in collaboration with industry, academia, national labs,
and foreign R&D programs.
3.1

Interagency Collaboration

The Methane Hydrate Research and Development Act specified that an interagency
committee, led by DOE, be created to ensure efficient communication and coordinationof activities across all entities in the U.S. government that conduct gas hydrate related
activities. This group, initially an Interagency Coordination Committee (ICC), and more
recently its technical implementation arm, the Technical Coordinating Team (TCT),
includes representatives from seven federal agencies (see Appendix A for current
memberships). Both groups meet periodically to inform their colleagues of new findings
20and emerging opportunities for synergistic research and collaboration, and to provide
input to the DOE on draft program plans and other matters. Although final
implementation of each agency’s programs and budgets are the sole responsibilities of
those agencies, each partner to this effort recognizes that continued interagency
collaboration will be critical to the success of the National R&D effort. The 2006
Roadmap presented four ways in which collaboration occurs and provided numerous
specific examples. The following provides additional examples of collaboration that haveoccurred since 2006.
With regard to co-funded programs, NOAA, BOEM, and the DOE continued to co-fund(as directed by Congress in FY2008, 2009, and 2010) the development and deploymentof a long-term sea-floor monitoring station within a hydrate-rich location in OCS block
MC 118 of the Mississippi Canyon area in the Gulf of Mexico. Interagency review of the
project in 2008 resulted in successful initiatives to improve the characterization of thesubsurface pathways that deliver gas to the surface mounds. The observatory hasrecorded information that is enabling observed changes in the occurrence of surficial gas
hydrates to be evaluated in the context of changing environmental conditions. The
project has also delivered improved techniques for geophysical data processing for thedetection and characterization of marine hydrate deposits.
In FY2013, the USGS executed a program of advanced seismic data acquisition over the
GC955 and WR313 sites in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. This program is co-funded by
USGS, DOE, and BOEM, and will represent the first instance of dedicated seismic datacollection (including multi-component, ocean-bottom data) in an area withcomprehensive pre-existing LWD data.
With regard to expertise and information sharing, the success of the DOE-funded field
program with BP at the Mt. Elbert site (2007) was enabled in large part by the scientificcontributions of the USGS, including the delineation of well location options, theselection and pre-drill characterization of the selected well location, and the operational
efficiency of the field program. Similarly, the DOI (USGS and BLM) effort to assess thetechnical recoverability of ANS gas hydrate incorporated the findings of the DOE-funded21

field program as well as the modeling results developed within the International CodeComparison effort conceived and enabled by the DOE (see Appendix D for a list ofparticipants). In the Gulf of Mexico, the DOE-funded JIP has benefitted greatly from thecontributions of the DOI, including both the BOEM and the USGS, as well as the NRL,in the reporting of JIP Leg I results (Ruppel et al., 2008), and in the selection of
appropriate sites and operational procedures for JIP Leg II drilling. USGS and DOE
personnel served as co-chief scientists for JIP Leg II field program, with BOEM
personnel providing on-board geologic expertise in the selection of final drill locations
and the real-time interpretation of LWD results. Scientists from all three agencies havecontributed substantially to the subsequent data analysis, interpretation, and reporting of
JIP Leg II data. These results have also provided insight into the ongoing BOEM effort
to assess the volume and recoverability of gas hydrate resources in the GOM (BOEM,
2013).
Third, agencies provide funds to each other to conduct work in support of this program
when those agencies have unique abilities to provide critical data needs. Recent
examples include funding from DOE to the NRL to participate in field expeditions on the
Hikurangi Margin (2006), Beaufort Shelf (2009) and Chatham Rise (2013). The DOE
has also extended funding to the USGS to enable specific laboratory and field efforts,such as geophysical surveys on the Beaufort shelf and upper continental slope,investigation of noble gas fractionation during hydrate formation/dissociation, and theimprovement of laboratory protocols for the formation of synthetic hydrate samples. The
BLM has supported the USGS, which in turn has provided funds to the DOE, to conduct
an evaluation of the full life-cycle implications of gas hydrate development on the Alaska
North Slope. In this program, USGS is contributing geological expertise and is funding
DOE to provide numerical modeling expertise.
Fourth, the collaborating agencies have been invaluable in continuing to provide
technical expertise to the development of R&D plans. The best example is this document,
which has been prepared by the interagency TCT. Furthermore, the collaborating
agencies have been very responsive to DOE’s requests to provide technicalcomment/review on proposals received under DOE solicitations, to participate as merit22

reviewers of ongoing DOE research efforts, and to provide the federally-mandated
Methane Hydrate Advisory Committee (MHAC) with updates on agency programs.
3.2

International Collaboration

The Program is committed to working with international programs where feasible. Suchcooperation provides information on the nature of gas hydrate occurrence in a wide range
of geologic settings. International collaboration also provides a framework for gaining
additional experience with field sampling and analysis tools. The agencies will alsoenable, to the extent possible and practical, the opportunities for foreign parties toparticipate in domestic hydrate field programs. The following reviews international
collaboration in the US National gas hydrates R&D Program in recent years.
3.2.1 India: U.S.-India collaborations are managed largely by the USGS, which playeda pivotal role in the planning, execution, and reporting for India’s NGHP-01 Expedition(2006). DOE also provided substantial direct support to that expedition. USGS in
particular, as well as DOE and BOEM, have been supporting India’s ongoing effort toassess its national gas hydrate resources, including project planning and site selection forplanned NGHP-02 drilling. India’s MOPNG maintains an MOU with the DOE, USGS,
and BOEM. The U.S. agencies will also support as fully as possible the NGHP’s desire
to develop numerical modeling capabilities and to establish world-class gas hydrate
research centers in India.
3.2.2 Japan: U.S.DOE-Japanese collaboration is enabled by an MOU signed in 2008.
Japan’s JOGMEC is a long-standing member of the Gulf of Mexico JIP and has
supported that program’s current effort to develop improved deepwater coring devices
through shared information on the design and performance of coring devices within the
MH-21 program. U.S. representatives from Chevron and the USGS witnessed initialland-based testing of the Japanese tools in 2011, and USGS and Georgia Tech scientists
affiliated with the JIP collaborated with JOGMEC and AIST scientists during theevaluation of pressure-cores at the AIST laboratories in Sapporo in early 2013. This
collaboration enabled Japan to obtain a range of technical measurements on pressurecores that they would not otherwise have obtained, and enabled the U.S. to evaluate the23performance of a range of U.S.-built pressure-core analysis devices. In 2011, JOGMEC
partnered with ConocoPhillips to conduct the “Ignik Sikumi” CO2 exchange field trial in
Alaska. JOGMEC provided technical assistance and ~$7.7 million in funding to the total~$28 million ($15 million DOE, $6 million ConocoPhillips) program.
3.2.3 Korea: In 2007, the Korean National Oil Company joined the Gulf of Mexico JIP,
joining existing member companies from the U.S, France, Japan, and India. The USGS
and DOE directly participated in Korea’s UBGH-01 (2007) and UBGH-02 (2010)
expeditions, including enabling direct contributions from scientists in the field,
supporting the analyses of required data, and participating in panels advising Korea on
field program plans. A Statement of Intent (SOI) between Korea’s MOTIE (formerlyMKE) and the DOE was signed in 2008 and renewed in 2013.
Many international collaborative opportunities have developed over the last decadethrough the International Methane Hydrate Research and Development Workshop thathas been supported by NRL, with support from DOE. This workshop has been held in
the U.S., Chile, Canada, Scotland and Norway and attended by approximately 800
scientists from over 25 nations. International collaborations have developed for fieldwork on the mid Chilean Margin, Cascadian Margin, Gulf of Mexico, Blake Ridge,
Hikurangi Margin, and the Beaufort Sea. The participating agencies will continue todevelop collaborative relationships, both formal and informal, with international groups
with interest in gas hydrates R&D. DOE will also support high-value opportunities forinternational collaboration that are developed by our collaborating U.S. federal agencies.
3.3

External Scientific Oversight

The DOE and the collaborating agencies in the National Methane Hydrate R&D program
recognize the soundness of incorporating external scientific input into major program
management decisions. This input is achieved through external peer reviews of ongoingprojects, external review of proposals for new projects under DOE solicitations,discussions within interagency groups, open meetings and workshops, ongoing
consultation with the Federal Advisory Committee (see Appendix B), and periodic
reviews by the National Research Council.

24

3.3.1 Formal Reviews: In FY2007, DOE commissioned a comprehensive review of the
program by the National Research Council. This review was completed and published in
January 2010 (Paull et al., 2010) and provided valuable recommendations for the
program. DOE conducted a thorough review of all work occurring within Cooperative
Agreements in September 2007 on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines. This
review featured panels consisting of six subject matter experts each in five separate
disciplines. This review resulted in numerous modifications of scope and planned
funding for many projects, the termination of several ongoing or planned project
activities, and the early discontinuation of one large effort. A similar review of work
being conducted through National Lab FWPs and through Interagency Agreements washeld in Pittsburgh, PA in July, 2008. In January 2010, DOE conducted a comprehensive
1-week program review in Atlanta, GA focused on information exchange anddevelopment of linkages across projects, without formal project review and ratings. A
similar meeting is anticipated for early FY2014.
3.3.2 Federal Advisory Committee (FAC): In keeping with the requirements of the
MHR&D Act, DOE reports regularly on program activities and plans to its Federal
Advisory Committee. The current FAC most recently met in Houston in July, 2012, andin Washington DC in June, 2013.
3.4

Technology Transfer and Outreach

Critical to the ultimate success of this program will be a rigorous scientific vetting of theeconomic and environmental implications of this program, and the effective
communication of those findings to the public. Methane hydrates may represent a new,“unconventional” fossil energy resource, and given 1) the strong links between fossil
fuels and potential anthropogenic climate change, and 2) the likely role gas hydrates may
have played in global climate events in geologic history, it is important that the program
both investigate and report on the environmental implications of potential utilization ofgas hydrates as a bridging fuel to the sustainable sources of the future. To be credible,
this outreach must include demonstration that the science community has a goodunderstanding of the role that naturally-occurring gas hydrate has in ongoing global

25

environmental processes, as well as how gas hydrates respond to environmental changes,
both natural and induced. The TCT continues to recommend that the U.S. science
community demonstrate and communicate that it is responsibly addressing these topics
and honestly and fully sharing the facts on issues of rightful concern to the public.
3.4.1

Websites and Newsletters: The DOE maintains comprehensive web-sites thatprovide detailed overviews of both past and ongoing projects, with links to all publicdomain, project-related reports and presentations. The website also provides access tovarious programmatic and outreach documents, such as the Methane Hydrates Primer,
past interagency planning documents, and NETL’s periodic newsletter, Fire in the Ice,
which continues to be a leading source of international information for the gas hydrate
community. Project related field data, such as the Ignik Sikumi gas hydrate exchange
field trial datasets, and initial scientific reports from JIP Leg II are provided through theweb-site at the earliest date possible, ensuring data becomes available in timeframes thatare much reduced from that associated with peer-reviewed publication. The USGS
(http://energy.usgs.gov/OilGas/UnconventionalOilGas/GasHydrates.aspx, as well as
http://woodshole.er.usgs.gov/project-pages/hydrates/) maintains comprehensive websites
for its gas hydrate programs that include extensive reporting on past project efforts
globally. NOAA continues to maintain the highly-popular “Ocean Explorer” website at
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/. BOEM has also recently upgraded its website, compilingall information related to the ongoing program of gas hydrate assessment throughout the
U.S. OCS, including assessment results and reports, and related information, such as theirextensive catalogue of seismically defined seep-sites and “BSRs” within the Gulf of
Mexico (see http://www.boem.gov/Oil-and-Gas-Energy-Program/ResourceEvaluation/Gas-Hydrates/GH-RA-Introduction.aspx)
3.4.2

Peer-reviewed Publication: Since FY2006, DOE-supported researchers havepublished ~XX papers in professional journals and presented more than XXX technicalpapers at leading conferences. Highlights of include the publication of three Thematic
Volumes with the Journal of Marine and Petroleum Geology edited by DOE and USGS
scientists that served to compile scientific results for the 2005 JIP Leg I program (Ruppel
et al., 2008); the 2007 Mt. Elbert Program (Boswell et al., 2011) and the 2009 JIP Leg II

26

program (Collett and Boswell, eds., 2012). DOE will continue to encourage its
researchers and research partners to publish their results in peer-reviewed journals andregularly participate in professional conferences.
3.4.3 Focused Workshops: DOE, in collaboration with the USGS and others, willcontinue to support technical workshops to bring key researchers together to discuss
R&D needs and opportunities. Key among these is the ongoing International Methane
Hydrate Research and Development workshop (IMHRD, or “Fiery Ice from the Seas”).
IMHRD workshops, which are lead by NRL in collaboration with a range of international
research groups, is intended to foster international collaboration between scientists fromvarious disciplines to exchange the latest knowledge in gas hydrates research across thefull range of first-order science issues. The workshop also provides a platform fornational representatives to introduce their gas hydrates programs, share their expertise,and seek opportunities for collaboration. DOE has co-funded all 8 of these workshops,
including the 5th IMHRD in Edinburgh Scotland (October 9-12, 2006), the 6th IMHRD in
Bergen Norway (May 13-15, 2008), the 7th IMHRD in Wellington New Zealand (May10-12, 2010), and the 8th IMHRD in Sapporo Japan (May 28 – June 1, 2012). Similarly,
the Gulf of Mexico Hydrates Research Consortium (GoMHRC) was organized in 1999
with the goal of advancing gas hydrate science in the Gulf of Mexico. The GoMHRC ismanaged and coordinated by the Center for Marine Resources and Environmental
Technology (CMRET) at the University of Mississippi and focuses primarily on activities
at the Mississippi Canyon 118 gas hydrate monitoring site. Membership in the GoMHRC
is open to all interested universities, government agencies and private companies. Eachyear consortium members present the results of their research at annual meetings, which
are partially funded by DOE, BOEM, and NOAA, all members of the consortium.
Smaller, focused workshops are also held periodically when appropriate. For example, a
USGS-led workshop was held in Cambridge, MA in February 2008 to discuss gas
hydrate-global climate linkages. Another workshop was held in Denver in March 2008 topresent the results of scientific analysis of data collected at the Mount Elbert well in 2007
and to discuss potential sites and operational plans for future production testing. A thirdworkshop occurred in Atlanta in March 2008 organized by the USGS and Georgia Tech27

discussed the laboratory protocols for the investigation of the physical properties of gas
hydrate-bearing sediments. An open meeting on the status of Alaska field projects washeld in Morgantown (WV) in January of 2009. An initial review of Gulf of Mexico JIP
Leg II findings was held in Houston in August, 2009 and included extensive participationfrom industry. A workshop to prioritize climate-hydrates research objectives wasorganized by the USGS in Boston, MA in February 2011.
In March, 2013, an open review meeting on the results of the Ignik Sikumi test was heldat the ConocoPhillips offices in Houston, and included participation of ~50 scientists
representing industry, academia and government organizations in seven countries. In
June, 2013, a meeting to discuss future options for marine field investigations was heldby the Consortium for Ocean Leadership, and included X participants from X countries.
3.4.4 Annual Report to Congress: Each year, DOE prepares an overview of the prioryear’s activities and findings in its Annual Report to Congress. These reports can befound on the DOE/FE website at http://energy.gov/fe/methane-hydrate-advisorycommittee.
3.5

Education and Training

Despite the high-visibility of the industry-led field efforts, universities have played amajor role in the program, both as key parts of the industry-led research teams and in
conducting their own competitively-awarded R&D projects. In future years, thiscontribution is expected to increase. At present, the program supports approximately XX
students (roughly 50% U.S. citizens) at levels ranging from B.S. to post-doctoral, atapproximately XX institutions. Since 2000, the number of students who have contributed
to the program exceeds XXX. In addition to the training/educational opportunities
provided within the portfolio of NETL cooperative agreements, the DOE established (in2006) a formal, competitive, merit-based Fellowship program in collaboration with the
National Academies of Science. That program has since selected seven “National
Methane Hydrate R&D Program Fellows” and hopes to select at least one additional
recipient annually.

28

4.0

R&D Roadmaps: 2014-2025

The following describes the overall nature, scale, and priorities for R&D in gas hydrates
as recommended by the interagency TCT given the planning assumptions described
below.
4.1

Planning Assumptions

This 2013 Roadmap represents a re-evaluation of prior concepts and strategies that haveframed the National Program in light of 1) scientific findings in recent years; 2) the
recent changes in the natural gas industry and their potential impacts on the ability to
expect access to industry capabilities and resources; and 3) recent budget trends, whichsuggest that assumptions that framed the prior roadmap (including levels of EPACT2005
R&D funding authorizations) are no longer relevant. Therefore, this Roadmap represents
the TCT consensus recommendation for appropriate long-range goals for the Program
going forward as well as a relevant long-range vision of the nature, duration, andsequence of activities needed to achieve those goals assuming that DOE program budgets
are likely to remain flat at no more than $10 million/year. The implications forachievement of program goals under different future budgets are discussed in Section 4.4.
Table 1: DOE Funding for Methane Hydrate R&D: FY1997 – FY2013 ($ millions)
00

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

08

09

10

11

12

13

Appropriation

2.9

9.9

9.8

9.4

9.4

9.4

11

12

15.8

16.1

15

0

10

4.8

Authorization

-

5.01

7.51

111

121

121

152

202

302

402

502

-

-

-

% of auth.

-

198

131

85

78

78

73

60

53

40

30

-

-

-

1Methane Hydrate Research and Development Act of 2000
2Energy Policy Act of 2005, Sec. 968

A critical feature of the Program through the past dozen years has been the effort to build
the program around major field-based activities. These field programs have been29

developed partnership with major oil and gas companies as those are the entities that canmost-readily enable access to the leases (relevant to the arctic onshore only), data,
personnel, and capabilities that are facilitate drilling and evaluation activities in the
Arctic and in deepwater. This approach, which featured the creation of Cooperative
Agreements with phased programs, aggressive goals and sufficient flexibility 1) to allow
adjustment to changing scientific and market contexts and 2) to accumulate limited
budgets over multiple years, has served the Program well. Since 2005, the Program has
been able to conduct a series of safe, efficient, and scientifically-successful field
programs, including JIP Leg I (2005 with Chevron and members of the GOM JIP); “Mt.
Elbert” (2007 with BP Exploration, Alaska); JIP Leg II (2009; again with the GOM JIP);
and “Ignik Sikumi” (with ConocoPhillips (2011/2012) and JOGMEC(2012)). However,
the TCT has concluded that this strategy can no longer be relied upon as the base strategy
for further scientific advance within the program. First, the costs of the needed field
operations, particularly long-duration arctic production tests or any production testing in
the marine environment, are not consistent with this plan’s $10 million/year budget
constraint. Second, in the past five years, expanding recoverability of unconventional
resources has changed the outlook for natural gas with the result that many of theProgram’s traditional industry partners are decreasingly able to justify deploying
company resources to non-core business, or to business with no clear near-term payout.
Nonetheless, the TCT agrees that scientific drilling programs are critical to theadvancement of gas hydrate science on all fronts. Therefore, it is necessary that the
program endeavor to facilitate and participate in field programs through collaboration
with a wide range of external groups (industry, service companies, academia, nationallyand internationally) and to continue to plan field programs of modest scale that target
unique data collection opportunities. Opportunities for collaboration with international
programs will continue to be a high focus for the US effort.
Going forward, the Program will focus its effort on core science and technology
development activities that advance the understanding of geologic systems capable of gas
hydrate accumulations, and the dynamic response of gas-hydrate-bearing sediments to achanging environment. The intent is to be prepared to test and refine these concepts
through field-based studies as opportunities arise (either within the program or through30

collaboration with external efforts). These core science plans will be conducted within aportfolio of projects that tap the best expertise from industry, universities, the National
Laboratories, and federal agencies. DOE will also continue to emphasize thedevelopment of projects through open and externally-reviewed solicitations. Priorities
for these science plans are reflected in this Roadmap, and reflect discussions among the
TCT and with the science community through various means, such as the workshops
conducted in 2013 in collaboration with ConocoPhillips and COL.
4.2

Goals

Overall, the Program’s goals are to create the comprehensive knowledge base and suite oftools/technologies that result in 1) increased confidence in the assessment of gas hydrate
volumes within the U.S., and an understanding of their distribution/occurrence in specificsettings of relevance to resource and climate issues; 2) the potential response of those
deposits to potential pressure/temperature changes, either induced or natural; and 3) touse this information to provide an accurate assessment of the resource, geohazard, andenvironmental implications of naturally-occurring gas hydrates. Specifically, the goals of
the Interagency U.S. program in gas hydrates at the assumed $10 million/year
appropriation level are as follows:
10-year Program Goals at planned budget levels: 2015-2025
Ongoing: Monitor opportunities to contribute to the planning and implementation of extendedduration production tests in collaboration with the State of Alaska, ANS industry, and otherinterested parties
By 2015: through analyses of existing data, determine the optimal production methodologies
for potential testing and application on the Alaska North Slope.
By 2017: provide an initial estimate of the role of gas hydrate in the flux of methane fromsediments to the ocean/atmosphere in key settings across a range of temporal and spatial scales;
By 2022: document the potential for ongoing climate change to affect the stability of coastal
gas hydrates, and to evaluate the impact of gas hydrate degassing on atmospheric greenhousegas concentrations.

31

By 2025: provide via targeted drilling and/or remote sensing programs, refined models for gas
hydrate occurrence within resource-relevant, environmentally sensitive, and/or geohazard
prone, accumulations within the U.S. OCS.

The TCT believes that the technical-feasibility of gas production from gas hydrates has
been established although the environmental impacts of such long-term production have
yet to be definitively determined. Therefore, a key goal of the program during the next
five years (2015-2020) is to evaluate the resource potential of methane hydrates for theUnited States through improved information on the occurrence of gas hydrate at highsaturations in sand-rich reservoirs. This evaluation includes both an appraisal of likely
volumes as well as numerical modeling efforts to estimate potential production profiles inorder to assess relative commerciality. At the planning assumption budget levels, theassessment of volumes would be based on a limited number of reduced-scale field
drilling and coring investigations, integrated closely with ongoing assessment activities
within the DOI. The assessment of productivity would be based on evaluation of past
field data, future field testing data as available, and through extrapolation of laboratory
and experimental data. However, no further scientific field production tests could be
expected to be funded primarily from the budgets of the U.S. National Program.
Consequently, the Program will continue to monitor and pursue opportunities to conduct
such tests in collaboration with various international groups.
Field investigations to determine gas hydrate’s potential future role in impacting thecourse of changing climates will be pursued, albeit through field programs of perhaps lesscomprehensive scale than previously conceived. The following provides descriptions of
the nature of high-priority R&D activities going forward.
4.3

Areas of Research Focus

4.3.1 Gas hydrate systems characterization: In order to achieve refined models of gas
hydrate accumulations within the U.S. OCS by 2025, detailed characterization isrequired. A prerequisite to evaluating the varied implications of naturally-occurring gas
hydrate is the improved understanding of the controls on the abundance, occurrence, andnature of gas hydrates in sediments. Although it appears likely that gas hydrates do occur

32

in large volumes in the U.S., the extent of accumulations of sufficient extent and richness
to be plausible resource targets has thus far only been postulated for the ANS (Collett etal., 2008b) and GOM (Frye, 2008), and both estimates are subject to significant
uncertainty. Similarly, current models of gas hydrate role in carbon cycling or potential
response to future climate change are based on simplified depictions of gas hydrate
occurrence and distribution. Better delineation of those areas most prone to climateinduced destabilization, improved understanding of the distribution of gas hydrate withinthose regions, and better models for the response of those systems to environmental
change, will be pursued. Key to this effort will be the development of remote sensingbased characterization tools integrated with field data-acquisition programs to provide
validation of occurrences.
The concentrations and nature of occurrence of gas hydrate varies between the marine
and the Arctic settings. Onshore Alaska, the combination of prolific petroleum systems,
extensive gas hydrate stability zones, and sand-rich sediment sequences has enabled theinterpretation of numerous discrete accumulations of high-concentration gas-hydrate inhigh-quality reservoirs, particularly within the areas of oil and gas development.
Extrapolating these data across the broader ANS introduces greater uncertainty. The
Program will make every effort to leverage ongoing industry activity (throughparticipation as feasible in “wells of opportunity”- wells being drilled by industry fordeeper targets but which provide opportunities for data collection in the shallow section)
to assess gas hydrate occurrence throughout the broader ANS. To fully determine thescale and nature of occurrence of gas hydrates in the ANS, the Program is expected tocollaborate with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (ADNR) and ANS
operators as feasible to review existing geologic and geophysical data. In addition, theacquisition of new geophysical data, as well as log and core data from new wells, will be
pursued. Further evaluation of gas hydrate occurrence outside the establishedinfrastructure areas will not only provide greater certainty to ANS gas hydrate resource
estimates, but would also provide an opportunity to potentially expand the options forfield testing programs to locations that could have more readily-manageable operational
logistics.

33

The shallow arctic shelf of Alaska hosts potential “relict” accumulations of gas hydrate.
They are called “relict” because they formed in onshore association with permafrost
during prior periods of lower sea-level, but are now housed (if they remain) withinshallow settings that continue to respond to the dramatically-changed thermal regime. As
this thermal pulse works its way through the sediment column, conditions no longer
support hydrate stability. These potential relict hydrates are an unconstrained source of
methane to the shallow sediments, ocean and atmosphere. Characterizing theiroccurrence is a prime focus of ongoing DOE-funded efforts by USGS as well as SMU,
Scripps Institute of Oceanography, and others.
In deep marine systems, despite numerous recent drilling programs, the nature of marine
gas hydrate occurrences in the U.S. continues to be poorly known. Even in relatively
data-rich regions such as the Gulf of Mexico, high-quality well and seismic data in theshallow depths where gas hydrate resides is rare. The prioritization of regions to beinvestigated will likely be highly influenced by the findings of ongoing BOEM
assessments of marine gas hydrates on the Atlantic, Pacific, and Alaska OCS,
supplemented as appropriate and feasible by new field data collection programs. The
TCT also recommends that the full assessment of gas hydrate occurrence should include
drilling campaigns that both 1) test specific gas hydrate prospects (and also provide
calibration opportunities for the technologies developed to find anomalously-highconcentrations that may have resource-relevance) as well as 2) conduct scientific drillingtransects designed to reveal the nature and variation of gas hydrate occurrence across a
range of geological and geochemical settings.
Therefore a primary near-term goal of the program will be to complete a comprehensive
review of existing Gulf of Mexico well data (in partnership with Ohio State University),
to further the refinement of interpretation processes for industry-standard seismic data(with Oklahoma State and FugroGeosciences), and to collect (as feasible) advanced
remote sensing data utilizing the well-characterized accumulations discovered at sites inGC955 and WR313 during previous Programs (USGS, DOE, and BOEM). In addition,
the Program will continue the effort to develop feasible plans for multi-well drilling andlogging expeditions within the U.S. OCS. Given the costs and logistical complexities in34

accessing industry drill-ships, this effort will now focus primarily evaluating
opportunities to utilize geotechnical and scientific vessels (Consortium for Ocean
Leadership and FugroGeosciences). These field programs plans may include further datacollection, most notably acquisition and analysis of pressure cores at one or perhaps twoof the established Gulf of Mexico sites (WR313, GC955, or AC21), or gas hydrate
exploration and characterization efforts in areas like the Atlantic OCS via newgeophysical surveys (as feasible given restrictions on such work inherent in NEPA
regulations) or short-duration drilling and logging programs.
4.3.2 Gas hydrate sampling tools/technologies: Given the difficulties in preservationand transfer of natural samples into laboratory equipment, and the complexities ofcreating synthetic samples that sufficiently mimic natural conditions, strong emphasis
will continue to be placed on development of in-situ data collection tools, as well as the
improved ability to collect and effectively analyze pressure cores. Therefore, a primarynear-term goal for the program will be to complete the development and initial testing ofa suite of pressure-core acquisition (Hybrid Pressure Coring System – HPCS) andanalysis (IPTC and PCCT: see (Santamarina et al., 2012)) tools through the ongoing
partnership with the Chevron-managed Gulf of Mexico JIP. The Program’s goal is toprovide a coring system that has the flexibility to successfully acquire and analyze coresfrom a range of drilling platforms and across a range of geologic settings, including gashydrate-bearing sands. Once completed DOE will work with the science community toensure that the devices are available for future scientific research. Opportunities to further
the development and improvement of these tools through international collaboration willcontinue to be monitored and pursued as feasible.
4.3.3

Gas hydrate production technologies: The Program’s intent is to conduct theinitial tests of gas hydrate reservoir productivity within the most operationally-favorable
setting: the well-characterized gas-hydrate-bearing sandstones known to exist under theGreater Prudhoe Bay (including Milne Point, Prudhoe Bay, and Kuparuk River oil fields)
infrastructure on the Alaska North Slope. Because the desired production tests are likely
to extend to a year or more, test locations need to be permanent production facilities inwhich R&D operations will not have an undue effect on ongoing industry operations (see35Collett et al., 2012). The program has successfully staged two short-term tests in the areafrom temporary ice pads (the 2007 “Mt. Elbert” and the 2011/2012 “Ignik Sikumi”
programs) and will work closely with industry, the state, and other interested parties toaddress ongoing logistical barriers to conducting a test from an existing gravel facility.
The next test would likely focus on establishing the nature and sustainability of reservoirdeliverability from depressurization and feature full environmental-impact monitoring to
track the development of the dissociation front, the migration and/or release of any freegas, and land subsidence. Subsequent tests would integrate the accumulated learnings inan effort to lead toward production technologies that appropriately balance productivity
with the desire to make the production system as carbon-neutral as possible. The initialtest programs have focused focus on obtaining the best possible datasets that will support
the further validation/calibration of numerical models of gas hydrate reservoir response tovarious specific perturbations across a range of geologic settings. These efforts will beclosely integrated with experimental work in the lab and through numerical simulation toadvance understanding of fundamental processes and properties that will facilitate bothbetter interpretation of test results and improved planning for future tests. Numericalmodeling of the geomechanical stability of gas hydrate reservoirs and overburden under avariety of production scenarios will be continued and fully integrated with the field effort.
It must be noted that testing programs as described above are not feasible under the basefunding assumptions of this Roadmap without significant cost-share and access, neitherof which can be assumed to be provided by the companies holding the Prudhoe Bayleases.
4.3.4. Gas Hydrate linkages to global climate change: The program will complete a
series of field-based studies in a variety of gas hydrate-bearing areas with the intent toconstrain the rates of gas-hydrate-related methane generation and flux from the sediment
to the ocean/atmosphere system (by 2017) and fully integrating these data into forward
climate models (by 2022) . The effort will focus on data collection in the field andsubsequent sample study in the lab, supplemented by the continued incorporation of gas
hydrate-relevant data into numerical models of carbon cycling and the response of gas
hydrate-bearing systems to environmental change. In parallel, numerical simulation tools
will be developed (and calibrated against emerging field data as it emerges) to enable36

reasonable forecasting of gas hydrate response under different climate change scenarios.
The overall goal is to contribute to the development of a general scientific consensus
regarding the potential for different modes of natural hydrate degassing to affect theenvironment. This work will be elucidated by studies of past gas hydrate-climate
linkages as appropriate.
4.4

Potential Program Goals under Alternative Budget Assumptions

In 2006, The TCT indicated that the Program would need to conduct a range of field
activities to achieve the goals as stated in the 2006 Roadmap. At that time, the TCT
agreed that long-term funding consistent with that indicated by the Energy Policy Act of2005 authorization (see Table 1) was a prerequisite for conducting the necessary fieldprojects, including 1) a long-term scientific production test in Alaska, followed byprograms that would refine and then demonstrate effective production technologies, 2) a
series of multi-well exploration programs in the U.S. OCS to confirm resource volumes,
and 3) a production test within the deepwater environment.
Under the assumption of future appropriations of $25 million/year, marine expeditions
can be conducted at more appropriate scale and frequency, and be supported by a fuller
range of complimentary modeling and experimental efforts, thus yielding results sooner
than a $10 million/year program would; and with more confidence in such results. The
program might also be in a position to be a major financial contributor to onshore
production tests. This funding level, which would enable the evaluation of a greater
diversity of sites (more efficiently and in fuller detail), would result in more timely,
accurate, and reliable assessment of the energy resource potential of gas hydrates.
Marine production testing would remain infeasible even at this alternative budget level.
Program Goals at alternative budget levels: 2015-2025
Ongoing: Monitor opportunities to contribute to the planning and implementation of extendedduration production testing in collaboration with the State of Alaska, Alaska North Slope
industry, and other interested parties37

By 2015: through analyses of existing data, determine the optimal production methodologies forpotential testing and application on the Alaska North Slope.
By 2015: provide an initial estimate of the role of gas hydrate in the flux of methane fromsediments to the ocean/atmosphere in key settings across a range of temporal and spatial scales;
By 2020: document the potential for ongoing climate change to affect the stability of the gas
hydrates, and to evaluate the impact of gas hydrate degassing on atmospheric greenhouse gas
concentrations.
By 2022: provide via targeted drilling and/or remote sensing programs, refined models for gas
hydrate occurrences within resource-relevant, environmentally sensitive, and/or geohazard prone,accumulations within the U.S. OCS.

38

5.0

Summary

Despite the recent accomplishments, the challenges facing the U.S .National Gas Hydrate
Program remain significant. Since the publication of the 2006 Interagency Roadmap,
three successful field programs in the U.S. as well as a series of resource assessment
reports from the DOI, we know much more about the extent and potential productivity ofgas hydrate reservoirs in the U.S. In addition, successful field programs in Alaska,
Canada and offshore Japan have confirmed the technical feasibility of gas recovery
utilizing depressurization and provided the first field trials of complementary
technologies that could improve the overall carbon footprint of extraction. Ongoingstudy by the BOEM has identified extensive geophysical evidence for gas hydrate
throughout the U.S. OCS that were initially validated by 2009 drilling and logging
programs in the Gulf of Mexico. This drilling also validated the overall exploration
approach being implemented in the program. Nonetheless, significant additional field
validation and calibration opportunities are needed before the U.S. gas hydrate resource
potential can be understood with confidence. Marine drilling and coring programs will
be pursued, provided the ability to create and fund projects across multiple years. Thesedrilling programs will likely be of shorter duration (testing fewer sites) than would havebeen envisioned in the prior Roadmap. Marine or arctic production tests of any usefulscale are not feasible under current budget assumptions. Therefore, the prior Roadmap’s
goal of demonstrating productivity has been replaced in favor of various analytical efforts
to identify the proper engineering design for tests should they occur and to further
evaluate production potential through analysis of existing data or data collection within
other international programs.
The program has developed a broad portfolio of work to assess the roles gas hydrate
plays in global carbon cycling and in global climate. At present, this work suggests thatthe volumes of gas hydrate susceptible to destabilization under likely future climate
scenarios is limited and that the primary impacts are likely to be oceanic, and not
atmospheric, chemistry. Field programs and comprehensive numerical models to further
confirm this tentative conclusion are needed.

39

The collaborating agencies recognize that an integrated effort in gas hydrate R&D maylead to enormous public benefits. One outcome will be an improved understanding of
our natural environment, providing significant benefits through more informed decisionmaking on a wide variety of issues ranging from ocean policy to global climate change.

40References Cited
Anderson, B., Wilder, J., Kurihara, M., White, M., Moridis, G., Wilson, S., Pooladi-Darvish, M.,
Masuda, Y., Collett, T., Hunter, R., Narita, H., Rose, K., Boswell, R., 2011. Analysis ofModular Dynamic Formation Test results from the “Mount Elbert” stratigraphic test well,
Milne Point, Alaska; J. Mar. Pet. Geol. 28 (2), 493-501.
BOEM (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management), 2012. Assessment of in-place gas hydrate
resources of the Lower 48 United States Outer Continental Shelf. BOEM Fact Sheet RED2012-01. 4 pp.
Boswell, R., Collett, T., 2011. Current perspectives on gas hydrate resources. Energy and Env.
Sci., 4, 1206-1215.
Boswell, R., Collett, T., Anderson, B., Hunter, R., eds., 2011. Thematic set on scientific resultsof the Mount Elbert Gas Hydrate Stratigraphic Test Well, Alaska North Slope., J. Mar. Pet.
Geol. 28 (2), 279-605.
Boswell, R., 2011. Gas hydrates: research status and potential as future energy supply for theUnited States. Ch. 11. National Petroleum Council, North America Resource Development
Study. 26 pp.
Coffin, R.B., Hamdan, L. Smith, J.P., Plummer, R., Millholland, L. Larson, R. (Submitted).
Spatial Variation in Shallow Sediment Methane Source and Cycling along the Alaskan
Beaufort Sea. Marine Petroleum and Geology.
Collett, T., Reidel, M., Cochran, J., Boswell, R., Presley, J., Kumar, P., Sathe, A., Sethi, A., Lall,
M., Sibal, V. NGHP Expedition 01 Scientists, 2006. Indian National Gas Hydrate Program
Expedition 01 Initial Reports. Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (India) DVD.
Collett, T., Riedel, M., Cochran, J., Boswell, R., Kumar, P., Sathe, A. 2008a. Indian continental
margin gas hydrate prospects: results of the Indian National Gas Hydrate Program (NGHP)
Expedition 01: Proceedings, 6th International conference on gas hydrates (ICGH-6).
Collett, T., Agena, W., Lee, M., et al., 2008b. Assessment of gas hydrate resources on the North
Slope, Alaska. U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2008-3073. 4 pp.
Collett, T., Johnson, A., Knapp, C., Boswell, R., 2009. Natural gas hydrates – a review, in Collett
T., et al., eds, Natural gas hydrates—Energy resource potential and associated geologic
hazards: AAPG Memoir 89.
Collett, T., Boswell, R., Lee, M., Anderson, B., Rose, K., Lewis, K., 2012. Evaluation of longterm gas-hydrate-production testing locations on the Alaska North Slope. SPE Reservoir
Evaluation and Engineering. April, 2010, p. 243-264.
Collett, T., Boswell, R., eds., 2012, Thematic set on resource and hazard implications of gas
hydrates in the Northern Gulf of Mexico: results of the 2009 Joint Industry Project Leg II
drilling expedition. J. Mar. Pet. Geol. 34 (1). 223 pp.

41

Dallimore, S., Yamamoto, K., Wright, J., Bellefleur, G., eds. Scientific results from the
JOGMEC/NRCan/Aurora Mallik 2007-2008 Gas Hydrate Production Research Well
Program, Mackenzie Delta, Northwest Territories, Canada. Geological Survey of Canada
Bulletin 601.
Dallimore, S., Collett, T., eds., 2005. Scientific results from the Mallik 2002 gas hydrate
production research well program, Mackenzie delta, Northwest Territories, Canada;
Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin 585
Frye, M., 2008, Preliminary evaluation of in-place gas hydrate resources: Gulf of Mexico outer
continental shelf: Minerals Management Service Report 2008-004:
http://www.mms.gov/revaldiv/GasHydrateAssessment.htm.
Fujii, T., Saeki, T., Kobayashi, T., Inamori, T., Hayashi, M., Takano, O., Takayama, T.,
Kawasaki, T., Nagakubo, S., Nakamizu, M., Yokoi, K. 2008. Resource assessment ofmethane hydrate in the eastern Nankai Trough, Japan: Proceedings, 6th International
conference on gas hydrates (ICGH-6).
Gaddipati, M., Anderson, B., 2012. 3D Reservoir Modeling of Depressurization-Induced Gas
Production from Gas Hydrate Reservoirs at the Walker Ridge Site, Northern Gulf of
Mexico," Offshore Technology Conference, 30 April-3 May 2012, Houston, Texas, US, OTC
23582-MS.
Hamdan, L.J., Gillevet, P.M., Pohlman, J.W., Sikaroodi, M., Greinert, J., Coffin, R.B., 2011.
Diversity and biogeochemical structuring of bacterial communities across the Porangahauridge accretionary prism, New Zealand. FEMS Microbiol. Ecol., 77: 518-532.
Hancock, S., Moridis, G., Wilson, S., Robertson, A., 2010. Well design requirements for
deepwater and arctic onshore gas hydrate production wells. Offshore Technology
Conference, OTC-21015. 7 pp.
Hornbach, M., Lavier, L., Ruppel, C., 2007. Triggering mechanism and tsunamogenic potentialof the Cape Fear slide complex, U.S. Atlantic margin. Geochem. Geophys. Geosys. 8.
JOGMEC, 2013. Press Release.
Johnson, A., 2012. Global resource potential of gas hydrate – a new calculation. DOE/NETL
Fire in the Ice Newsletter, 11 (2).
Kvalstad, T., Andersen, L., Forsberg, C., Berg, K., 2005. The Storegga Slide: evaluation of
triggering sources and slide mechanics, J. Mar. Pet. Geol., 22, 245-256.
Kvenvolden, K., 1988. Methane hydrates and global climate. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 2,
221-229.
Lee, M., Collett, T., Inks, T., Seismic-attribute analysis for gas hydrate and free-gas prospects on
the North Slope of Alaska. In Collett, T., et al., eds., Natural Gas Hydrates – Energy
Resource Potential and Associated Geologic Hazards., Am. Assoc. Pet. Geol. Memoir 89.
Chapter 22 pp. 541-555.

42

Lee, Sung-Rock, Ryu, Byong-Jae, Bahk, Jang-Jun, Yoo, Dong-G., Lee, Joo-Y., Yi, Jun-Seog,
Collett, T.S., Riedel, M., Torres, M.E., and UBGH2 Science Party, 2011. Recent
developments of gas hydrate program in the Ulleung Basin gas hydrate drilling expedition 2:
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Gas Hydrates (ICGH 2011), July 17-21,
2011, Edinburg, Scotland, 7 p
McConnell, D., Zhang, Z., Boswell, R., 2012. Review of progess in evaluating gas hydrate
drilling hazards. , J. Mar. Pet. Geol., 34 (1) 209-223.
Myshakin, E., Gaddipati, M., Rose, K., Anderson, B., 2012. Numerical simulations ofdepressurization-induced gas production from gas hydrate reservoirs at the Walker Ridge 313
site, northern Gulf of Mexico, J. Mar. Pet. Geol., 34 (1) 169-185.
Nagakubo, S., Arata, N., Yabe, I., Kobayashi, H., Yamamoto, K., 2011., Environmental Impact
Assessment study on Japan’s methane hydrate R&D program. DOE/NETL Fire in the Ice
Newsletter, 10 (3), 4-11.
NAS (National Academies of Science), 2010. Realizing the Energy Potential of Methane
Hydrate for the United States. Committee on assessment of the Department of Energy’s
methane hydrate research and development program: evaluating methane hydrate as a futureenergy resource (Paull, C., Chair). National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 184 pp.
Paull, C., Ussler, W., Dallimore, S., Blasco, S., Lorenson, T., Melling, H., Medioli, B., Nixon, F.,
McLaughlin, F., 2007. Origin of pingo-like features on the Beaufort Sea shelf and their
possible relationship to decomposing methane gas hydrates. Geoph. Res., Lett. 43.
Park, K., 2008. Gas hydrate exploration activities in Korea. Proceedings, 6th International
conference on gas hydrates (ICGH-6).
Pecher, I., et al., 2011. Gas hydrates in New Zealand – A large resource for a small country?
DOE/NETL Fire in the Ice Newsletter, 10 (3), 1-3.
Reagan, M., Moridis, G. 2008. Dynamic response of oceanic hydrate deposits to ocean
temperature change; Journal of Geophysical Research 113, C12023,
doi:10.1029/2008JC004938.
Reagan, M., Moridis, G., Boyle, K., Freeman, C., Pan, L., Keen, N., Husebo, J., 2012.
Massively-parallel simulation of production from field-scale oceanic gas hydrate deposits.
Proceedings, TOUGH Symposim 2012., Sept. 17-19, 2012. Lawrence Berkeley National
Lab. 9 pp.
Ruppel, C., 2011. Methane Hydrates and Contemporary Climate Change, Nature Education
Knowledge, 3(10), 29.
Ruppel, C., Boswell, R., Jones, E., 2008. Scientific results from Gulf of Mexico gas hydrates joint
industry project Leg 1 drilling: Introduction and overview: Journal of Marine and Petroleum
Geology, v. 25, n.
Rutqvist, J., Grover, T., Moridis, G., 2008. Coupled hydrological, thermal, and geomechanicalanalysis of wellbore stability in hydrate-bearing sediments: SPE Offshore Technology
Conference; OTC 19572

43

Ryu, B., Riedel, M., Kimm J-H., Hyndman, R., Lee, Y-J., Chung, B-H., Kim, I-S., 2009. Gas
hydrates in the western deep-water Ulleung Basin, East Sea of Korea. J. Mar. Pet Geol., 26,1483-1498.
Santamarina, C.,
Saeki, T., Fujii, T., Inamori, T., Kobayashi, T., Hayashi, M., Nagakubo, S., Takano, O. 2008.
Delineation of methane hydrate concentrated zone using 3-D seismic data in the eastern
Nankai Trough: Proceedings, 6th International conference on gas hydrates (ICGH-6).
Schoderbek, D., Martin, K., Howard, J., Silpngarmlert, S., Hester, K., 2012. North Slope Hydrate
Fieldtrial: CO2/CH4 exchange. SPE Arctic Technology Conference, OTC-2375. 13 pp.
Schultheiss, P., Holland, M., Humphrey, G., 2009. Wireline coring and analysis under pressure:recent use and future developments of the HYACINTH system; Scientific Drilling 7, 44-47.
Shedd, W., Boswell, R., Frye, M., Godfriaux, P., Kramer, K., 2012. Occurrence and nature of“bottom simulating reflectors” in the northern Gulf of Mexico. J. Mar. Pet. Geol., 34 (1), 3140.
Shelander, D., Dai, J., Bunge, G., Singh, S., Eissa, M., Fisher, K., 2012. Estimating saturation ofgas hydrates using conventional 3-D seismic data, Gulf of Mexico Joint Industry Project Leg
II. J. Mar. Pet. Geol. 34 (1), 96-110.
Technical Coordination Team, 2006. An Interagency Roadmap for methane hydrate research anddevelopment; US DOE-NETL: http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/oilgas/publications/Hydrates/pdf/InteragencyRoadmap.pdf
Waite, W., Santamarina, C., Cortes, D., Dugan, B., Espinoza, D., Germaine, J., Jang, J., Jung, J.,
Kneafsey, T., Shin, H., Soga, K., Winters, B., Yun, T., 2010. Physical Properties of Hydratebearing sediments. Reviews of Geophysics 47, 38 pp.
Walsh, M., Hancock, S., Wilson, S., Patil, S., Moridis, G., Boswell, R., Collett, T., Koh, C.,
Sloan, D., 2009. Preliminary report on the economics of gas production from natural gas
hydrates. Journal of Energy Economics 31, 815-823.
Wang, Y., Liu, C-S., et al., 2009. Gas Hydrate investigation in Taiwan. DOE/NETL Fire in the
Ice Newsletter, 9 (1).
White, M., Wurstner, S., McGrail, B., 2011. Numerical studies of methane production from Class
1 gas hydrate accumulations enhanced with carbon dioxide injection. J. Mar. Pet. Geo. 28(2), 546-560.
Wilder, J., et al., 2008. An international effort to compare gas hydrate reservoir simulators,
Proceedings, 6th International conference on gas hydrates (ICGH-6).
Yamamoto, K., Inada, N., Kubo, S., Fujii, T., Suzuki, K., Konno, Y. 2012. Pressure coresampling in the Eastern Nankai Trough. DOE/NETL Fire in the Ice Newsletter, 12 (2)44Zhang, H., Yang, S., Wu, N., Su, X., Holland, M., Schultheiss, P., Rose, K., Butler, H.,
Humphrey, G., and GMGS-1 Science Team. 2007. Successful and surprising results for
China’s first gas hydrate drilling expedition. USDOE-NETL Newsletter, Fire in the Ice, Fall
2007, pp. 6-9.

45