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SPE 93492

Gas Hydrate Production Technology for Natural Gas Storage and Transportation and
CO2 Sequestration
R. Masoudi, SPE, Heriot-Watt U., NIOC R&D, and B. Tohidi, SPE, Heriot-Watt U.

Copyright 2005, Society of Petroleum Engineers Inc.


This paper was prepared for presentation at the 14th SPE Middle East Oil & Gas Show and
Conference held in Bahrain International Exhibition Centre, Bahrain, 1215 March 2005.
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE Program Committee following review of
information contained in a proposal submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper, as
presented, have not been reviewed by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and are subject to
correction by the author(s). The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any
position of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, its officers, or members. Papers presented at
SPE meetings are subject to publication review by Editorial Committees of the Society of
Petroleum Engineers. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper
for commercial purposes without the written consent of the Society of Petroleum Engineers is
prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to a proposal of not more than 300
words; illustrations may not be copied. The proposal must contain conspicuous
acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper was presented. Write Librarian, SPE, P.O.
Box 833836, Richardson, TX 75083-3836, U.S.A., fax 01-972-952-9435.

Proposal
Gas hydrates (or clathrates) are group ice-like crystalline
compounds, which form through a combination of water and
suitably sized guest molecules under low temperature and
elevated pressure conditions. Within the clathrate lattice, water
molecules form a network of hydrogen-bonded cage-like
structures, enclosing the guest molecules, which generally
comprise of low-molecular diameter gases (e.g., methane,
ethane, propane, carbon dioxide (CO2), etc).
Although hydrate formation can pose serious flow assurance
problems in oil and gas industry, gas hydrates have great
potential for positive applications turning a long standing
problem into a potential benefit. Two important properties of
hydrates are their very high gas to solid ratio, 1m3 of hydrate
may contain up to 175m3 of gas (at standard conditions), and
self preservation effects which make them feasible to be
transported at atmospheric pressure. They thus present a novel
means for gas storage, transportation and delivery, with
consequent potential applications in a wide variety of areas,
including exploitation of remote gas fields, CO2 sequestration,
etc. However, a major barrier to the development of hydrate
technology is the current lack of an economical means for the
mass-production of solid hydrate in a manageable form.
In this communication, a literature review with a critical
evaluation has been conducted on the various reported hydrate
production techniques to better understand the production
process and identify any shortcomings of such techniques. In
addition a new technique is proposed to produce hydrate in
which dry hydrate is formed in especially designed reactor in
the presence of excess gas. The technique has been applied to
production of NG hydrate for NG storage and transportation
purposes and CO2 hydrate for application in CO2
sequestration. The preliminarily promising results of series of

tests carried out on a NG and CO2 hydrate formation are


presented along with an evaluation of atmospheric hydrate
self-preservation and dissociation rate versus time and
temperature.
Literature review
Motivations of storage and transportation of natural gas
in hydrate form:
The need for natural gas at lower costs in the world is the
challenge that drives the development of a new process for
storing and transport natural gas (NG) in the form of frozen
hydrate. One of the important property of hydrates which
makes them very attractive to be used in gas storage and
transportation is their very high gas to solid ratio; 1m3 of
hydrate may contain 150-180 Sm3 of gas depending on the
pressure and temperature of production [1,2].
In addition to high-density gas containing property of
clathrate, gas hydrate has a remarkable self-preservation (i.e.,
meta stable) effect, which makes it more attractive as an
alternative for natural gas storage and transportation. The
principle of the self-preservation is such that, when gas
hydrate formed at a high pressure and low temperature below
freezing point is returned to atmospheric pressure, dissociation
is started from the surface, water covers the surface, an ice
film is formed to cover the surface and prevent further hydrate
dissociation and therefore the gas hydrate inside is stabilised
[3,4]. This effect causes the gas hydrate to remain stable at
atmospheric pressure when kept frozen (-5 to 15 C) at near
adiabatic conditions. Independent experimental studies in
Norway, Canada, Japan and Russia have shown that natural
gas hydrate is stable at latter condition for a long time (up to
two years) [3-6].
The above unique properties make natural gas hydrate (NGH)
technology very attractive for natural gas storage and
transportation and other possible applications such as CO2
sequestration. However, up to now, the major challenge of
utilising gas hydrates for gas storage and transportation is to
develop an effective process methodology to achieve the near
theoretical gas to hydrate ratio.
Comparing NGH
transportation:

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to

other

technologies

for

gas

SPE 93492

Natural Gas Hydrate (NGH) non-pipeline technology is being


developed for the storage and transport of natural gas, in
particular stranded gas, both associated and non-associated.
The technology concerns the production, transportation and
regasification of natural gas hydrate. It is reported that the cost
ratio of NGH production plant is the highest in the NGH chain
around 61% and then transportation around 31% and
regasification 8% [7,8].
Hydrate technology is an appropriate alternative to the wellestablished liquefied natural gas (LNG) technology for the
small to medium size gas fields, as LNG technology is only
economically feasible in large-scale gas projects [7,9].
Compared to alternative technologies such as LNG and gas to
liquids (GtL), NGH technology is relatively simple, low cost
and does not require complex processes or extremes of
pressure and/or temperature. The most important factor to
materialize the system is economy. It was found that capital
cost of NGH technology is about 25% lower than the capital
cost of LNG technology [5,9].
Typical comparison between LNG and NGH technology was
made by Gudmundsson et al. [10] based on 400 MMscf/d
(million standard cubic feet a day) gas production (4 billion
Sm3 per year) to be transported 5500 km by ship to market.
The total capital cost using natural gas hydrate (NGH)
technology was US $1995 million compared to US $2677
million using liquefied natural gas (LNG) technology;
therefore they concluded that the NGH-chain costs 26 percent
less than the LNG-chain. They detailed that NGH
transportation costs 25% less than LNG transportation,
production process, 36% less and regasification 9% more
capital cost in comparison to LNG.
Detailed economic calculations have been carried out for the
entire hydrate supply chain for both onshore and offshore
production facilities and comparisons made with LNG, GtL
(Gas to Liquid) and CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) gas
transport for a bulk transportation [9,11,12]. It was reported
that in the terms of the transport distance for NG, pipelines are
best for short distances (<1000 km), NGH is best for medium
to long distances (1000 to 12000 km), LNG is better than
syncrude when the distance is <6000 km, syncrude is best for
extra long distances (>12000 km) [7,11], as illustrated in
Figure 1.
In addition to the above economical comparison, the
competitive concentration of gas in hydrate is attractive
compared to the 200 m3 from 1 m3 of CNG, which needs a
high pressure (>200 bar) or the 600 m3 gas from 1 m3 LNG,
which needs a very low temperature of 160 C [2,13].
Hydrate production and gas storage
There are fundamental interests in continuous production of
gas hydrate in a large-scale reactor and effective long-term
storage of gas in clathrates. As mentioned earlier, the
production of gas hydrate covers more than 60% of the costs
of NGH chain. Therefore, development of an efficient
technique, which is practical and economical for mass

production of gas hydrate, is vital for materialising the NGH


technology. However, there are still a number of technical
challenges to be addressed in the development of a cost
effective NGH production process.
Gas hydrate can be produced in a dry and slurry states. Slurry
hydrate, like icy water, production technique is investigated by
several researches (e.g., British Gas, Kope Shipyard and
Machinery Works, Japan) [1,7,14]. Hydrate slurry can be
produced in a reactor when water is in excess. The process
involves formation of slurry hydrate, which is not stable at
atmospheric pressure, and then dehydration of the initial
formed slurry to produce either concentrated slurry or hydrate
powders. Laboratory experiments showed that the pump-able
hydrate slurry containing around 75 volume percent of gas per
volume percent of hydrate slurry can be achieved and
suggested that the concentrated hydrate slurry at ~2 C would
need pressure containers at around 10 bar [2]. The main
disadvantages of hydrate slurry technique are low production
rate and the need for dehydration at high pressure conditions.
There is limited progress with commercial dehydration units,
which makes the process very expensive. Furthermore, the
dynamic of the process is complex for scale up, especially if a
mechanically stirred reactor is required for achieving
acceptable formation rate. Alternative method for producing
hydrate powders is proposed in this paper, which involves
formation of dry hydrates under excess gas conditions,
therefore eliminating the requirements for high pressure
dehydration. However, the kinetics of the process is a major
issue and for large scale industrial application the kinetics
should be studied and considered.
Dry hydrate formation is also studied from a quiescent water
solution in the presence of surfactant (i.e., sodium dodecyl
sulafate) in order to increase the hydrate formation rate
[15,16]. The study led to storage capacity of 155 vol/vol of
natural gas hydrate at a constant pressure of 3.89 MPa and 276
K. The dry hydrate formation is also reported from ice
particles leading to fully conversion of ice to hydrate [17].
However the formation of hydrate from a quiescent pure
water-hydrocarbons gas as well as ice particles is extremely
slow diminishing the practical feasibility of the techniques.
In order to promote the conversion of water to hydrate and
improve the hydrate formation rate various options were
examined including applying high agitation, increasing surface
area, and using a miscible hydrate former in order to avoid
liquid water to be trapped within or under solid hydrate
[18,19]. It is reported that structure H hydrate can store the
largest amount of methane principally because the ratio of
small to large cages is 5:1, compared to 2:1 for sII and 1:3 for
sI. Formation kinetics of sH hydrate are enhanced with the
addition of PVP as more methane is consumed during hydrate
formation in the presence of PVP (Polyvinylpyrrolidone) than
in the case of pure water [13]. The same result has been
observed in our laboratory showing that the addition of small
amount of PVCap (polyvinylcapralactam) will increase the
hydrate formation rate. Other experiments carried out in our
laboratory show that the addition of small amount chemicals,

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SPE 93492

such as tetrahydrofuran and ammonium salts, can also increase


the rate of hydrate formation and improve its stability, as will
be discussed in details later in this paper.
Production of hydrates in the form of pellets has been reported
by several researchers [20]. Among various forms of hydrates
for gas storage and transportation, such as powder, slurry, and
block, pellet form is the best considering the followings:
Preservation: utilizing hydrate pellet can remarkably
improve the self-preservation of hydrate. Hydrate
dissociation in pellet forms is below 0.25%/day at -15
C.
Packing density and handling efficiency: combining
various particle sizes of hydrate pellets can increase the
storage efficiency.
Re-gasification: the gasification (hydrate dissociation)
can be controlled more readily in hydrate pellets.
An efficient and standardised hydrate formation and pellet
production technique enhances the realisation of the gas
storage and transportation technology using hydrates.
Experimental tests
As mentioned earlier, the main barrier to development of the
NGH technology is the lack of effective method in mass
production of gas hydrate in solid form. Therefore, the main
objective of this work was to investigate the dry gas hydrate
formation (i.e., hydrate formation in the presence of excess
gas). Experimental procedure and setup used in this work is
elaborated in below.
Experimental setup: The setup which is used in these series
of tests is hydrate kinetic rig 2 at Centre for Gas Hydrate
Research/ Heriot-Watt University. The schematic of the setup
has been illustrated in Figure 2. The main part of the setup is a
kinetic rig consists of a high-pressure vessel (69 MPa) with a
0.5 litre volume. The cell temperature is controlled by
circulating coolant inside a constant temperature
o bath, it has an
operating temperature range of -30 to 75 C oand this is
measured by a thermocouple to an accuracy of 0.1 C. The cell
pressure is monitored by a pressure transducer (accuracy of
0.015 MPa). A magnetic stirrer with adjustable rotation speed
(i.e., rpm) is used to agitate the test fluids. The torque required
to drive the stirrer at a constant speed is measured and related
to the viscosity of the system. A computer is used to collect
data for pressure, temperature and torque.
Material used: Deionised water, natural gas with composition
tabulated in Table 1 (used in NG hydrate production tests),
pure liquid CO2 (used in CO2 hydrate production tests), Tetra
Butyl Ammonium Bromide (TBAB, used as promoter in NG
hydrate production tests).
Test procedure: Aqueous solution is initially pre-loaded into
the reactor up to around 25-30 vol% of reactor in order to
leave enough space for gas (i.e., to be in the excess gas

conditions). Natural gas is then charged to the reactor, while


the stirrer is on with around 1000 rpm, till elevated pressure of
about 2000-2500 psi at 30-35 C in the cell. It should be noted
that in the case of CO2 hydrate formation the cell is
pressurised with liquid CO2 till pressure of about 600-700 psi.
The system is kept at this condition for enough time (2-3 hrs)
to achieve VL equilibria and also to make sure there is no gas
leak in the system. Next, the temperature is set to 0.2-0.5 C
(i.e., being in the safe region from water freezing). Hydrate is
formed during cooling down and initially pushed towards the
reactor wall. In the laboratory experiments, the system is left
until the pressure is relatively stabilised (or stirrer is blocked
due to massive hydrate formation). In order to make sure that
there is no free water left and/or convert any trapped water
into hydrates, the system is pressurised by secondly gas
injection without changing the temperature set point. After 4-5
hrs, when the pressure is stabilised, the system is
depressurised by discharging the remaining free gas from the
cell. During the depressurisation, the system temperature is
dropped, helping the formed gas hydrates to become more
rigid and stable, as well as forming more hydrate in the case of
still existing trapped free water. The produced dry solid
hydrate, which looks to be very solid and rigid, can be
discharged in either block form (if some initial discharge
preparation/device is considered while designing the hydrate
reactor such as putting an internal metal basket in the cell) or
crushed hydrate particles. The hydrate must be immediately
transferred to the fridge with adequate low temperature to
prevent/minimise dissociation. The produced hydrate can be
next converted to powder and pellet for various applications.
Figures 3 and 4 show the typical dry CO2 and NG hydrate
produced in kinetic rig in this study.
Results and discussion
Natural gas tests: Applying the above mentioned test
procedure in kinetic rig, two NG tests, one with pure water
and the other with 1 mass% TBAB solution, were carried out.
It should be noted that we managed to produce solid NG
hydrate in both tests.
In order to examine the self-preservation effect of formed NG
hydrate, the produced hydrate is weighed and transferred to
the fridge immediately and kept at low temperature. The selfpreservation and weight loss is determined gravimetrically by
regularly controlling the product weight with time. Figure 5
presents the self-preservation effect of NG hydrate produced
with pure water. It should be noted that for this test, the
produced hydrate were initially kept at -25 C for 98 hrs and
then the fridge temperature was changed to -15 C for another
255 hrs and then -10 C for 60 hrs and -8 C for another 300
more hours. As can be seen from the figure, the NG hydrates
became stable (i.e., did not lose weight) very quickly at
enough low temperature (i.e., under freezing point of water). It
shows that the NG hydrate has significant self-preservation
effect enabling it to be transported at atmospheric pressure and
feasible low temperature. As explained and can be seen from
the figure, changing the temperature to higher temperatures (of
course lower than freezing point of water) does not have any
negative impact on its self-preservation effect.

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SPE 93492

Figure 6 shows the self-preservation effect of NG hydrate


produced with 1 mass% TBAB. For this test again, the
produced hydrate were initially kept at -15 C for 230 hrs and
then the fridge temperature was changed to -10 C for 75 hrs
and then -8 C for another 290 more hours. The same
temperature influence and self-preservation effect as previous
test with pure water was observed.
The main differences between NG hydrates with and without
TBAB were: 1) With TBAB the hydrate has more gas content
and there is more gas consumption while hydrate formation,
this could be attributed to change in gas solubility in the
presence of TBAB and also kinetic change in formation rate of
hydrate in the presence of TBAB, 2) The hydrate formed with
TBAB is less stable in room temperature and its tendency to
dissociate is very high (Figure 7). Figure 7 shows the
comparison between the self-preservation effects of NG
hydrate with and without TBAB.
In general, for practical cases, the hydrate production rig
should be placed in a cool room, in order to prevent/minimise
hydrate dissociation while transferring the produced hydrates
from the reactor and the produced hydrate should be
immediately transferred to low temperature conditions. It can
be concluded that, as a guideline for NG hydrate production,
the produced hydrate should be kept at low temperature
around -20 C for first instance (8-10 hours) and then it can be
transferred to higher temperature conditions around -5 to -8 C
without any hydrate dissociation occurs.
CO2 tests: The main objective of conducting CO2 hydrate
production tests is to investigate the stability of CO2 hydrate
for application of gas hydrate technology in CO2
mitigation/sequestration and transportation in form of hydrate.
The same test procedure and analyse approach have been
applied in these series of tests. As noted earlier, for CO2 tests,
pure liquid CO2 was used as hydrocarbon phase. Figure 8
shows the temperature-pressure-torque profile for one of the
CO2 hydrate formation tests. As shown in the figure, the point
of hydrate formation, when the pressure is dropped,
temperature is raised and the torque is also dramatically
increased, is obvious in this figure. Figure 9 presents the
cooling down path and also shows that the system is in the
LCO2-H region when the hydrate forms.
In order to check the self-preservation effect of CO2 hydrate,
the same procedure as NG hydrate tests was considered. Two
initial fridge temperatures, -18 and -14 C, were checked.
Figure 10 shows the self-preservation effect of CO2 hydrate
versus time. In this figure, the hydrate was initially kept at -18
C for some time and then the temperature was raised to -14
C in order to check the weight loss at different temperatures.
As shown in the figure, for CO2 hydrate no significant selfpreservation effect is seen and the weight loss is changed with
temperature (i.e., different slopes in the figure for two
different temperatures). The product was left for even 23 days
and, as can be seen in Figure 11, the system was still losing
weight with almost the same slope. This can be interpreted
that the CO2 hydrate does not have significant self-

preservation effect and this could be due to the very high


diffusivity of CO2 gas which may enable it to diffuse through
the formed outer ice layer around the hydrate. Other
possibility could be due to the differences in ice structures
formed from CO2 hydrate and NG hydrate [21], hence the gas
diffusion through the ice structures are different.
Figure 12 shows the comparison between the CO2 hydrate
self-preservation effects for different temperatures. In general,
as shown in Figures 12 and 10, the CO2 hydrates lose more
gas (weight) at higher temperatures.
Conclusions
An extensive literature review with critical evaluation was
conducted on comparison of various alternative methods
including hydrate technology for natural gas storage and
transportation, as well as various gas hydrate production
techniques.
A new method of dry gas hydrate production in the presence
of excess gas was studied. The method was applied in
production of dry natural gas and carbon dioxide hydrates.
The self-preservation effects and atmospheric stability of
produced NG and CO2 hydrate was investigated. Results
showed that NG hydrate has significant self-preservation
effect as it stabilises at atmospheric pressure and low
temperature around -10 to -15 C. However, CO2 hydrate
showed negligible self-preservation effect. Moreover,
dissociation rate of CO2 hydrate, unlike NG hydrate, is very
sensitive to temperature.
It can be concluded that NG hydrate can be preserved and
transported at atmospheric pressure, but this is not true in case
of CO2. Moreover, the rate of hydrate formation can be
improved in the presence of Ammonium salts such as TBAB.
It is speculated that TBAB changes the gas solubility in
aqueous phase and/or the kinetic of hydrate formation.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the Scottish Higher Education
Funding Council for their Research Development Grant. Mr
Rahim Masoudi wishes to thank the National Iranian Oil
Company (NIOC) for the financial support during his PhD
studies.
References
1.

2.

3.

Gudmundsson, J.S. and Mork, M., Stranded gas to hydrate for


storage and transport, 2001 International Gas Research
Conference, Amsterdam (2001), November 5-8.
Taylor, M., Dawe, R.A., and Thomas, S., Fire and Ice: Gas
Hydrate Transportation A possibility for the Caribbean
Region, SPE 81022, presented at the SPE Latin American and
Caribbean Petroleum Engineering Conference held in Port-ofSpain, Trinidad, West Indies (2003), April 27-30.
Yakushev, V.S. and Istomin, V.A., Gas hydrates selfpreservation effect, Physics and chemistry of Ice, Hokkaido
University Press, Sapporo, Japan (1992), 136-139.

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SPE 93492

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.
19.

20.

21.

Stern, L., Circone, S., Lirby, S. and Durham, W., Anomalous


preservation of pure methane hydrate at 1 atm, Journal of
Physical Chemistry, 105 (2001), 1756-1762.
Gudmundsson, J.S., Parlaktuna, M., and Khokhar, A.A.,
Storing natural gas as frozen hydrate, SPE Production and
Facility (1994), 69-73.
Davidson, D.W., Garg, S.K., Gough, S.R., Handa, Y.P.,
Ratcliffe, C.I., Ripmeester, J.A., Tse, J.S., and Lawson, W.F.,
Laboratory analysis of a naturally occurring gas hydrate from
sediment of the Gulf of Mexico, Geochimica et Cosmochimica
Acta, 50 (1986), 619-623.
Fitzgerald A. and Taylor M., Offshore Gas-to-Solid
Technology, SPE paper 71805, presented at the Offshore
Europe Conference held in Aberdeen, UK (2001), 4-7
September.
Gudmundsson, J.S. and Borrehaug, A., Frozen hydrate for
transport of natural gas, Proc. 2nd Intl. Conf. Natural Gas
Hydrates, Toulouse, France (1996), June 2-6, 415-422.
Gudmundsson, J.S., Mork, M. and Graff, O.F., Hydrate nonpipeline technology, Proc. 4th Intl. Conf. Gas Hydrates,
Yokohama (2002), May 19-23, 997-1002.
Gudmundsson, J.S., Hveding, F., and Borrehaug, A., Frozen
hydrate compared to LNG, Department of Petroleum
Engineering and Applied Geophysics, Norwegian Institute of
Technology, Trondheim, January (1995).
Gudmundsson, J.S., Anderson, V., Levik, O.I., and Parlaktuna,
M., Hydrate Concept for Capturing Associated Gas, SPE
50598, the European Petroleum Conference, 20-22 October
1998, The Hague, Netherlands (1998), Conference Proceedings,
247- 258.
Chang, S., Comparing exploitation and transportation
technologies for monetisation of offshore gas, SPE 68680, SPE
Asia Pacific Oil Conference, Jakarta, April (2001).
Khokhar, A.A., Gudmundsson, J.S., and Sloan, E.D., Gas
storage in structure H hydrates, Fluid Phase Equilibria, 150151 (1998), 383-392.
Kimura, T., Iwasaki, S., Yoshikawa, K., Nagayasu, H., Miyata,
K., Okui, T., Hirayama, H., and Ihara, M., Dehydration method
of gas hydrate slurry for natural gas transportation and storage
system, Proc. 4th Intl. Conf. Gas Hydrates, Yokohama (2002),
May 19-23, 1003-1006.
Rogers, R.E. and Zhong, Y., Feasibility of storing natural gas
in hydrates commercially, Annals New York academy of
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Experimental studying of additives effects on gas storage in
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Sloan, E.D., Measurement of methane hydrate dissociation for
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hydrates", Phys . Chem. Chem. Phys ., 6 (2004), 4917 4920.

Table 1: Composition of used natural gas in NG tests.

MW

Mole%

N2

28.01

3.24

C1

16.04

87.32

CO2

44.01

1.36

C2

30.07

5.67

C3

44.1

1.68

iC4

58.12

0.23

nC4

58.12

0.4

iC5

72.15

0.1

Figure 1: The potential utilisation of gas hydrates for natural gas


transportation compared to conventional methods, based on gas
volume and market distance, is shown in the above figure after
Fitzgerald and Taylor [7].

Figure 2: Schematic of kinetic rig used for gas hydrate production


tests.

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SPE 93492

NG hydrate weight / gr

5.00

116

4.00
112
3.00
108
2.00
104

weight vs time
Weight loss vs time

100
0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

1.00

NG hydrate cumulative weight


loss %

6.00

120

0.00
500

time / hrs

Figure 3: Solid and dry CO2 hydrate formed in this work.

Figure 6: Stability of NG hydrate produced with 1 mass% TBAB


aqueous solution versus time.

NG hydrate cumulative weight loss %

4
Without TBAB
With TBAB

0
0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

time / hrs

Figure 7: Comparison between the stability of NG hydrate with


and without TBAB versus time. Cumulative weight loss%=
100*(initial weight-remaining weight)/initial weight.

Figure 4: Solid (dry) natural gas hydrate formed in this work.

12

700
5

96

3
weight vs time
Weight loss vs time

94

92

90
0

50

P/Psia and Torque

98

NG hydrate cumulative weight


loss %

NG hydrate weight / gr

600

Pressure

10

500
8
Torque
400
6
300
4
200
2

100

Temperature

0
100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600

time / hrs

300

600

900

1200

1500

0
1800

time / min

Figure 5: Stability of NG hydrate produced with pure water versus


time.

Figure 8: Temperature, Pressure, and Torque profiles for one of


the CO2 tests.

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t/C

100

SPE 93492

700

Cumulative weight loss/mass%

Solid lines, HWHYD model


600
Cooling path
500

P/Psia

LCO2-H-V
400

Lw-H-V

300
200
I-H-V
100
0

6
5
4
3
2

-10

-5

10

15

t/C

258

20

Weight/gr

250
15
o

T= -14 C
o

T= -18 C
10
242
5

Cumulative weight loss/gr

254

238

Weight vs time
Weight loss vs time

234
0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

500

0
550

time/hrs

Figure 10: CO2 hydrate stability at different temperatures in 9


days.
50

260

40
35
30

T= -18 C

T= -14 C

25
20

230

15
10

220

Cumulative weight loss/gr

45
250

240

Weight vs time
5

Weight loss vs time


210
0

200

400

600

800

80

120

160

200

Figure 12: Comparison between CO2 hydrate weight losses at


various temperatures.

25

246

40

time / hrs

Figure 9: The cooling down path in one of the CO2 tests. Hydrate
stabilised in LCO2-H region.

Weight/gr

T=-18 C
T=-14 C

1000

1200

0
1400

time/hrs

Figure 11: CO2 hydrate stability at different temperatures in 23


days.

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