Offshore staff
HOUSTON– Fugro GeoConsulting Inc. has received two research awards from the US Department of Energy to advance the understanding of resource-grade gas hydrates.
The first award is for developing plans for a pressure-coring program to sample the gas hydrates that were identified during a DOE-funded drilling expedition in the deepwater US Gulf of Mexico in 2009. The second award is for developing methods and tools to better understand the gas hydrate reservoirs through seismic imaging and rock physics. The company received $591,000 in research funding.
The research and planning will be done by gas hydrate specialists and engineers in Fugro’s Houston offices with collaboration from the company’s scientists and engineers in the Netherlands.
The DOE calls gas hydrate “the world’s largest untapped fossil energy resource.” Gas hydrates, also called methane hydrates, are ice-like lattice structures with concentrated natural gas inside that form in the Arctic and in deep ocean sediments on the continental margins.
Resource-grade gas hydrates are high-saturation gas hydrate deposits in sands that might be produced with existing oil and gas production technology.
9/12/2012
