Natural Gas Hydrate: A Brief Review

Abstract

Hydrates are often called as a future fuel or frozen fuel. There is an abundant source of natural gas deposits as compared to the conventional deposits. The reservoirs of the natural gas hydrates have been strongly suggested as a potential energy resource. These resources have the potential of displacing the position of conventional hydrocarbons from the energy dealing markets when trapped within the water molecules. This is possible only when they can be extracted effectively in a cost effective manner. The increasing natural gas prices makes the production from these unconventional gas deposits an economically viable affair. Gas trapped inside the hydrate structure is so far not produced at a commercial rate attributing to the major variation in the economics of natural gas demand and supply chain. The commercial production is supposedly to be commenced within the forthcoming years. In the present work various hydrates extraction methods have been discussed with their merits and demerits from the complex hydrate structures. This paper provides a review of the gas hydrate occurrence, crystal structures, resource assessment exploration and challenges.

Keywords: Gas hydrates, production, hydrate structure, conventional deposit, unconventional gas