Development of Sand Production Evaluation Apparatus for Methane Hydrate Development

Abstract:

As a part of a Japanese National hydrate research program (MH21, funded by METI), we performed a study on sand production mechanism during methane gas production. In 2013, the first methane hydrate offshore production test was conducted in Japan, and it was recognized in the production of about 20000m³/day of methane gas from methane hydrate bearing sand sediment in deep marine sediment. In methane hydrate development, depressurization method has been proposed for gas extraction. This method is a method to reduce the bottom hole pressure by submersible pump lowering water level in the production well, and gas and water is recovered by methane hydrate dissociation at the in situ. At that time, a phenomenon that sand flows into the wells is feared. In actually, sand production phenomenon occurred after 6 days from production start in offshore production test. A mechanism of sand production has not yet been resolved in case of methane hydrate development. Therefore, we developed large scale laboratory test apparatus for the purpose of elucidation of the mechanism of sand production phenomenon. In this presentation, we introduce basic performance of this apparatus, and usefulness is made mention by representative test results.