Proceedings of The Seventh (2006) ISOPE Pacific/Asia Offshore Mechanics Symposium

Dalian, China, September 17-21, 2006

Copyright © 2006 by The International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers
ISBN 1-880653-67-2

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Simulation of Natural Gas Production in Hydrate Reservoirs
Liqun Hou, Yingxiang Wu
Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Bin Cui
Liao-He Oilfield, China National Petroleum Corporation, China

ABSTRACT

This paper simulates a one-dimensional physical model of natural gas

production from hydrate dissociation in a reservoir by depressurization.
According to the principles of solid hydrate decomposition in stratum
and flow of natural gas in porous medium, the pressure governing
equations for both gas zone and hydrate zone are set up based on the
physical production model. Using the approximation reported by N. N.
Verigin et al. (1980), the nonlinear governing equations are simplified
and the self-similar solutions are obtained. Through calculation, for
different reservoir parameters, the distribution characters of pressure
are analyzed. The decline trend of natural gas production rate with
time is also studied. The simulation results show that production of
natural gas from a hydrate reservoir is very sensitive to several
Fig. 1 Pressure-temperature equilibrium of the simple methane hydrate
reservoir parameters, such as wellbore pressure and stratum porosity
(G. J. Moridis, 2003)
and permeability.

KEY WORDS: Natural gas hydrate; depressurization; simulation

model; pressure distribution

INTRODUCTION

Natural gas hydrates are solid, ice-like crystalline materials that

compounds of natural gas and water which can steadily existing under
high pressure and low temperature conditions. The natural gas
molecules are trapped in the cage-like structure of surrounding water
molecules. Fig. 1 is the pressure-temperature equilibrium of the simple
methane hydrate (Moridis, 2003). There are enormous natural gas
hydrates reserving in subsurface of deep-sea sediments and permafrost
regions of the earth. Studies have shown that the main natural gas Fig. 2 Scheme of shifting hydrate equilibrium curve
trapped in hydrates are methane, and one volume of solid gas hydrate
can release 150 to 180 volumes of methane at standard pressure and 19th century. Davidson firstly studied the properties of gas hydrates in
temperature condition. Natural gas hydrate is also a sort of clean details (1973). Since the Russian discovered in situ hydrates in the
energy. It is expected to be an alternative energy resource in the future. 1960’s, there are more and more natural scientists and scholars studied
the properties and the production schemes of hydrates. In order to
Extensive interest in gas hydrates study started in the early part of the force the solid hydrates to dissociate, it is necessary to break the

4
equilibrium of phase pressure-temperature conditions. Fig. 2 shows the
scheme to produce natural gas from hydrate which is based on shifting
the hydrate equilibrium phase curve. Scientists have proposed several
methods to recover natural gas from gas hydrates dissociation in a
reservoir, such as depressurization, thermal stimulation, chemical
inhibitor injection, or a combination of these methods. But the
depressurization method is probably the most practical and feasible
among these methods (Sira, 1991).
is hydrate zone which contains solid hydrates and free gas. The gas
zone is in the neighborhood of the well where the pores are full of gas
and water and the hydrate zone is away from the well where the
hydrates have not dissociated. With time evaluating, the reservoir
pressure decrease continuously. The hydrates dissociate with the
pressure decreasing and dissociation front moves outward gradually.
In the present model, the flow of water in porous medium is neglected.

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Makogon (1981) showed that natural gas can be produced from in situ
hydrate dissociation by depressurization or thermal mechanisms.
Verigin et al. (1980), Holder et al. (1982), Yousif et al. (1991),
Makogon et al. (1997), Moridis et al. (2003) and a number of other
authors have developed the model of gas production from hydrates
dissociation by depressurization in details. Many useful numerical
results are obtained.

This paper studies a one-dimensional model of natural gas production

from in situ gas hydrate decomposition by depressurization in a
reservoir. In this method, it is assumed that a natural gas production
well is drilled through the in situ reservoir and the stratum pressure is
reduced below the three phase vapour-liquid-hydrate equilibrium
pressure, causing the hydrates to decompose. To simulate the
production process, a physical model is established and the relative
Fig. 3 Schematic of gas production from hydrate reservoir
governing equations in gas and hydrate zone are set up separately. The
simulation results are also analyzed.
GOVERNING EQUATIONS
MODELING GAS PRODUCTION FROM HYDRATES
In this paper, it is assumed that there is only natural gas flow in porous
medium. The governing equation for the distribution of pressure in the
Natural gas hydrates can steadily exist under low temperature and high stratum can be described as:
pressure conditions. When the pressure decreases below the phase
critical decomposition pressure or the temperature rises, the
equilibrium will be broken and the hydrates decompose into natural ⎛ kn ⎞ ∂ P n (n=1, 2) (1)
∇ ⋅ ⎜⎜ ∇ P n ⎟⎟ =
gas and water. The chemical reaction for gas hydrate decomposition is ⎝ 2 μ (1 − α n ) φ ⎠ ∂t
represented by: Here, subscript n = 1 represents the gas zone and n = 2 represents
hydrate zone as shown in Fig. 3; k is permeability; μ is viscosity;
( CH 4 • 6 H 2 O ) solid ⇔ ( CH 4 ) gas + 6 ( H 2 O ) liquid
φ is porosity; α 1 and α 2 are water saturation in gas zone and
The hydrate dissociation pressure PD at constant temperature TD is hydrate zone, respectively.
determined by the relation of the phase change (Makogon, 1981):
PD = a (T D − T 0 ) + b (T D − T 0 ) + c In the present dissociation model, the initial and boundary conditions
2
log 10
can be:
where T 0 = 273 . 15 k，and a , b and c are empirical constants
P1 (0, t ) = Pw P2 ( x,0) = P2 (∞, t ) = PIn (2)
which depend on the equilibrium pressure and temperature data of
methane gas hydrate as (Makogon, 1997):
P1 ( L (t ), t ) = P2 ( L (t ), t ) = PD (T D ) (3)

a = 0 . 0005 / K 2 ，and b = 0 . 0342 / K ，and c = 6 . 4804 Here, PD is hydrate dissociation pressure at dissociation front; T D is
hydrate reservoir temperature at dissociation front; P1 is pressure in
In case of a depressurization-induced dissociation, the driving force is
gas zone; P2 is pressure in hydrate zone; Pw is well pressure; L (t )
the differential pressure across the hydrate. In this paper, solid hydrate
dissociating into gas and water by depressurization is studied. The is the distance between well and dissociation front.
production model assumes that the initial equilibrium pressure and
temperature in hydrate reservoir are P In and T In , respectively. SOLUTIONS TO EQUATIONS
When a well is drilled through the reservoir, the stratum pressure near
the well immediately drops to the wellbore pressure Pw < PD < PIn . According to the mass balance, the continuity equation for the gas in
the gas zone has an integral form (Verigin et al. 1980):
Fig. 3 is the schematic of natural gas production from a infinite L (t ) t
reservoir by depressurization. For the difference between Pw and PD , φ (1 − α 1 ) ∫ ρ1 ( x, t )dx = φα 2σρ 3 L(t ) + ∫ ρ1 (0, t )u1 (0, t )dt
the pressure and temperature equilibrium condition is broken, the 0 0 (4)
hydrates in the neighborhood of the well become unsteady and t
⎡ dL ⎤
dissociate into natural gas and water. The hydrates near the well − ∫ ρ 2 ( L, t ) ⎢u 2 ( L, t ) − φ (1 − α 2 ) ⎥dt
dissociate first, and a so-called dissociation front form which separates 0 ⎣ dt ⎦
the whole hydrate reservoir into two zones, one is gas zone, the other Here, ρ 1 and ρ 2 are gas density in gas zone and hydrate zone,

5
 So substituting equation (11) to (15), the production rate of natural gas
respectively; ρ 3 is hydrate density; u1 and u 2 are gas flow velocity; from well is:
σ is the mass of the gas in unit mass of the hydrate. 2 π k 1 hr ∂ P1 ( 0 , t ) π
2 2
k 1 hr ( PD − Pw )
Q = = (16)
In gas zone, the continuity equation is:
μ ∂x erf ( ε 1 ) μ PD πχ 1 t
∂ρ 1 ⎡ ρ 1u 1 ⎤ (5)
+ ∇ ⋅⎢ ⎥ = 0
∂t ⎣ φ (1 − α 1 ) ⎦ RESULTS
Using equations (4) and (5) we can obtain:

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dL(t)
ρ1u1 − ρ2u2 = [(1 − α1 )ρ1 − (1 − α2 )ρ2 − α2σρ3 ]φ (6) This section presents the calculation results for the reservoir pressure
dt and temperature distribution during the natural gas production from in
situ gas hydrate. The values of dissociating temperature and pressure
At the dissociation front it is supposed that the natural gas is ideal gas, at the dissociation front suggested by Chuang Ji are listed in Table 1.
so the state equation is:
ρ 0 PD T D For constant reservoir initial pressure and well pressure, the evaluation
ρ 1 ( L ( t ), t ) = ρ 2 ( L ( t ), t ) = ρ ( L ( t ), t ) = (7) of the stratum pressure distribution with time for the well pressure
P0 T 0 fixed at 2 MPa is shown in Fig. 4. From the pressure curves, it is easy
From equations (6) and (7) one obtains: to see that the pressure at the well is the lowest. The pressure
⎡ zρ P T ⎤ dL(t ) (8) distribution curve is obviously divided into two parts by the
u1 ( L(t ), t ) − u 2 ( L(t ), t ) = − ⎢α 2σ 3 0 D − (α 2 − α 1 )⎥φ dissociation point A. The first part of the curve reflects the pressure in
⎣ ρ 0 P T0 ⎦ dt
D
the dissociated gas zone and the other part is the pressure distribution
The problem from (1) to (8) is in fact the hydrodynamic analog of in solid hydrate zone. In the gas zone, the variation of pressure is small,
Stefan’s problem. The pressure governing equation (1) is a non-line while in the hydrate zone the pressure gradient is great from the
equation. In order to get its self-similar solution, it should be dissociation pressure PD to reservoir initial pressure PIn . With time
transformed to a linear form. Using the approximation:
2 evaluating, the dissociation front moves outward continuously and the
∂ P1 ∂ P1
∂ P2 ∂ P2
2
(9) pressure distribution is also vary gradually. Fig. 4 shows the
≈ 2 Pw ≈ 2 P In
∂t ∂t ∂t ∂t comparison of pressure slope in 30 days and 60 days and 120 days on
In this one-dimensional model, considering the gas flow in x- the same conditions. The calculation results of pressure distribution in
dimension, then equation (1) takes the form: different time presented by AHMADI in 2000 are also showed in this
χ n ∂ 2 Pn 2 ∂ Pn
2 figure. Through comparison, it is indicated clearly that the present
= (10) results agree very well with that of AHMADI showed in Fig. 4.
φμ ∂ x 2 ∂t
where k 1 Pw k P The hydrate zone permeability has a great impact on the pressure
χ1 = χ 2 = 2 In distribution. The higher the permeability is, the faster the pressure in
1−α1 1−α2
hydrate zone decrease, and the pressure gradient becomes smaller. Fig.
Because such linearization can not lead to a significant error,
5 shows the stratum pressure distribution curves when the hydrate
following the boundary conditions (2) and (3), the self-similar solution
zone permeability is given as 0.1md, 0.2md and 0.6md, respectively.
to the linearized problem are given as:
2 2 2 2erf ( λ 1 ) Table 1 Values of dissociating temperature and pressure
P1 = Pw + ( Pw − PD ) (11)
erf (ε 1 ) Pe (MPa) Te (K) Pw (MPa) TD (K) PD (MPa)

2 erfc ( λ 2 )
2 2 2
15 280 2 270.07 2.42
P2 = PIn + ( PIn − PD ) (12)
15 285 2 275.44 3.69
erfc (ε 2 )
where: 15 287 2 277.66 4.47
2 15 287 3 277.69 4.49
L (t) ，
L (t ) = γt ， λ n = x ，ε =
γ ， γ=
2χ nt
n
4χ t 15 287 4 277.93 4.58
n

k 1 Pw k 2 P In 15 287 4.53 278.04 4.64

χ1 = ，χ =
φμ (1 − α 1 ) φμ (1 − α 2 )
2

ξ
d η ， erfc (ξ ) = 1 − erf (ξ )
2 (13)
∫e
−η 2
erf (ξ ) =
π 0
The transcendental equation for the constant parameter γ which is
related to movement of dissociation front is obtained:

PD − Pw exp( −ε 1 ) P − PD exp( −ε 2 )
2 2 2 2 2 2

F (γ ) = k1 − k 2 In (14)
πχ 1 erf (ε 1 ) πχ 2 erf (ε 2 )

Using Darcy’s law, the natural gas production rate per unit length of
the well is:
kA (15)
Q = ∇ p Fig. 4 Pressure distribution in different time
μ

6
 16 14

14 k2=0.1md
k2=0.2md
12 γ=0.02m2/s
12 k2=0.6md
10 γ=0.03m2/s γ=0.08m2/s
Pressure(MPa)

10

Pressure(MPa)
γ=0.04m2/s
8
8

γ=0.05m2/s

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6 6

4
4

2
2
0
0 200 400 600 800 0 200 400 600 800
Distance(m) Distance(m)

Fig.5 Pressure distribution for different permeability Fig. 9 Pressure distribution for different parameter γ

16
φ=0.5
14
φ=0.3
12

φ=0.2
Pressure(MPa)

10

0
100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Distance(m)

Fig. 6 Pressure distribution for different porosity Fig. 10 Gas output decline vs. time

15.0

14.5
Pressure(MPa)

x=352m
t=60day
14.0 PIn=15.0MPa
Pw=2.0MPa

13.5

13.0
0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6

Porosity

Fig. 7 Pressure distribution for different porosity at x=352m Fig. 11 Cumulative gas output vs. time

The stratum porosity φ n has a great effect on the pressure distribution

16
especially in hydrate zone. From fig. 6 one sees that at the same
14 P In=15MPa
location in the same time, the greater the porosity is, the higher the
12 PIn=13MPa pressure. Calculation shows that at the point of 318 m away from the
well, the value of pressure is 12.3086 MPa when the φ 2 is 0.2, if the
Pressure(MPa)

10 PIn=11MPa
8
PIn=9.0MPa porosity is given as 0.52 without changing any other parameters, the
6 pressure up to 14.336 MPa in the same time. Fig. 7 clearly reflects the
pressure changing trend with different stratum porosity at 352 m away
4
from the well.
2

0 Fig. 8 shows the pressure distribution curves for the initial pressure,
0 200 400 600 800

Distance(m)
respectively, fixed at 9 MPa, 11 MPa, 13 MPa and 15 MPa. The initial
reservoir pressure mainly affects the distribution of pressure in hydrate
Fig.8 Pressure distribution for different initial pressure zone. For different initial reservoir pressure, the pressure in gas zone

7
is almost overlapped, while in hydrate zone, the stratum pressure
gradient increase with the initial reservoir pressure increasing.
Fig.9 is the pressure distribution slope when the parameter γ which
related to movement of dissociation front is given as 0.02 m2/s, 0.03
m2/s, 0.04 m2/s, 0.06 m2/s and 0.08 m2/s, respectively.
Fig. 10 is the natural gas output decline curve in the well when the
Davidson, D. W (1973). “Clathrate Hydrates, Water: A
Comprehensive Treatise,” F. Franks, ed., Plenum, New York, 115.
Holder, G.D., Katz, D.L, and Hand, J.H (1976). “Hydrate Formation in
Subsurface Enviroments,” Bull., AAPG 60, No. 6. pp. 981-994.
Holder, G.D., Angert, P.F., Godbole, S.P (1982). “Simulation of Gas
Production from a Reservoir Containing Both Gas Hydrates and
Free Natural Gas,” SPE 11005, 57th Annual Conference, New
Orleans, Sept. pp. 26-29.

well pressure Pw is given as 2.0 MPa, 3.0MPa and 4.0MPa
respectively. With the time, the output decreases gradually, and at the
beginning the decreasing is faster while later it becomes slower. On
the same conditions, it is indicated that the present simulation results
are consistent to the results calculated by AHMADI in 2000. Fig. 10
also denotes that the well pressure is a main function of the production
rate. The cumulative output is a nonlinear function of time. With the
time, the cumulative output increases gradually, as showing in Fig. 11.
CONCLUSIONS
This study simulates a one-dimensional natural gas hydrate reservoir
model. A set of self-similar solutions for the nonlinear equations are
obtained. The variations of pressure distribution with time are studied.
The sensitivity of natural gas production from hydrate decomposition
to several reservoir parameters such as porosity, permeability and
initial pressure is also analyzed. From the analysis of the results, the
following conclusions have been drawn:
(1) The present simulation results agree very well with that of
AHMADI published in 2000. The calculation results in this
paper are dependable.
(2) In a natural gas hydrate reservoir, the gas output by
depressurization method is very sensitive to wellbore pressure,
stratum permeability.
(3) With time, the gas output decreases, and at the start of
production the decline of output is faster.
(4) The dissociation front moves outward slower with time.
(5) For a fixed hydrate reservoir, the rate of natural gas production
can be increased if the wellbore pressure is kept lower.
(6) For this model, the production rate of natural gas from well is
greatly influenced by the wellbore pressure. Correctly keeping
the wellbore pressure is very important.
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