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Global warming and the response to it have become a topic of concern in today’s society and are also a research focus in the global scientific community. As the world’s third pole, the global warming amplifier, and the starting region of China’s climate change, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is extremely sensitive to climate change. The permafrost on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is rich in natural gas hydrates (NGHs) resources. Under the background of global warming, whether the NGHs will be disassociated and enter the atmosphere as the air temperature rises has become a major concern of both the public and the scientific community. Given this, this study reviewed the trend of global warming and accordingly summarized the characteristics of the temperature increase in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Based on this as well as the distribution characteristics of the NGHs in the permafrost on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, this study investigated the changes in the response of the NGHs to global warming, aiming to clarify the impacts of global warming on the NGHs in the permafrost of the plateau. A noticeable response to global warming has been observed in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Over the past decades, the increase in the mean annual air temperature of the plateau was increasingly high and more recently. Specifically, the mean annual air temperature of the plateau changed at a rate of approximately 0.308–0.420°C/10a and increased by approximately 1.54–2.10°C in the past decades. Moreover, the annual mean ground temperature of the shallow permafrost on the plateau increased by approximately 1.155–1.575°C and the permafrost area decreased by approximately 0.34×106 km2 from about 1.4×106 km2 to 1.06×106 km2 in the past decades. As indicated by simulated calculation results, the thickness of the NGH-bearing permafrost on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has decreased by 29–39 m in the past 50 years, with the equivalent of (1.69 – 2.27)×1010–(1.12–1.51)×1012 m3 of methane (CH4) being released due to NGHs dissociation. It is predicted that the thickness of the NGH-bearing permafrost will decrease by 23 m and 27 m, and dissociated and released NGHs will be the equivalent of (1.34–88.8)×1010 m3 and (1.57–104)×1010 m3 of CH4, respectively by 2030 and 2050. Considering the positive feedback mechanism of NGHs on global warming and the fact that CH4 has a higher greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide, the NGHs in the permafrost on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau will emit more CH4 into the atmosphere, which is an important trend of NGHs under the background of global warming. Therefore, the NGHs are destructive as a time bomb and may lead to a waste of efforts that mankind has made in carbon emission reduction and carbon neutrality. Accordingly, this study suggests that human beings should make more efforts to conduct the exploration and exploitation of the NGHs in the permafrost of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, accelerate research on the techniques and equipment for NGHs extraction, storage, and transportation, and exploit the permafrost-associated NGHs while thawing them. The purpose is to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere and mitigate the atmospheric greenhouse effect, thus contributing to the global goal of peak carbon dioxide emissions and carbon neutrality.©2022 China Geology Editorial Office.

ABSTRACT: How natural gas hydrates nucleate and grow is a crucial scientific question. The research on it will help solve practical problems encountered in hydrate accumulation, development, and utilization of hydrate related technology. Due to its limitations on both spatial and temporal dimensions, experiment cannot fully explain this issue on a micro-scale. With the development of computer technology, molecular simulation has been widely used in the study of hydrate formation because it can observe the nucleation and growth process of hydrates at the molecular level. This review will assess the recent progresses in molecular dynamics simulation of hydrate nucleation and growth, as well as the enlightening significance of these developments in hydrate applications. At the same time, combined with the problems encountered in recent hydrate trial mining and applications, some potential directions for molecular simulation in the research of hydrate nucleation and growth are proposed, and the future of molecular simulation research on hydrate nucleation and growth is prospected.©2022 China Geology Editorial Office.

ABSTRACT: Blockage in water-dominated flow pipelines due to hydrate reformation has been suggested as a potential safety issue during the hydrate production. In this work, flow velocity-dependent hydrate formation features are investigated in a fluid circulation system with a total length of 39 m. A 9-m section pipe is transparent consisted of two complete rectangular loops. By means of pressurization with gas-saturated water, the system can gradually reach the equilibrium conditions. The result shows that the hydrates are delayed to appear as floccules or thin films covering the methane bubbles. When the circulation velocity is below 750 rpm, hydrate is finally deposited as a “hydrate bed” at upmost of inner wall, narrowing the flow channel of the pipeline. Nevertheless, no plugging is observed during all the experimental runs. The five stages of hydrate deposition are proposed based on the experimental results. It is also revealed that a higher driving pressure is needed at a lower flow rate. The driving force of hydrate formation from gas and water obtained by melting hydrate is higher than that from fresh water with no previous hydrate history. The authors hope that this work will be beneficial for the flow assurance of the following oceanic field hydrate recovery trials.©2022 China Geology Editorial Office.

ABSTRACT: Large amounts of gas hydrate are distributed in the northern slope of the South China Sea, which is a potential threat of methane leakage. Aerobic methane oxidation by methanotrophs, significant methane biotransformation that occurs in sediment surface and water column, can effectively reduce atmospheric emission of hydrate-decomposed methane. To identify active aerobic methanotrophs and their methane oxidation potential in sediments from the Shenhu Area in the South China Sea, multi-day enrichment incubations were conducted in this study. The results show that the methane oxidation rates in the studied sediments were 2.03–2.36 μmol/gdw/d, which were higher than those obtained by sediment incubations from other areas in marine ecosystems. Thus the authors suspect that the methane oxidation potential of methanotrophs was relatively higher in sediments from the Shenhu Area. After the incubations family Methylococcaea (type I methanotrophs) mainly consisted of genus Methylobacter and Methylococcaea_Other were predominant with an increased proportion of 70.3%, whereas Methylocaldum decreased simultaneously in the incubated sediments. Collectively, this study may help to gain a better understanding of the methane biotransformation in the Shenhu Area.©2022 China Geology Editorial Office.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the pore water conversion characteristics during hydrate formation in porous media is important to study the accumulation mechanism of marine gas hydrate. In this study, low-field NMR was used to study the pore water conversion characteristics during methane hydrate formation in unsaturated sand samples. Results show that the signal intensity of T2 distribution isn’t affected by sediment type and pore pressure, but is affected by temperature. The increase in the pressure of hydrogen-containing gas can cause the increase in the signal intensity of T2 distribution. The heterogeneity of pore structure is aggravated due to the hydrate formation in porous media. The water conversion rate fluctuates during the hydrate formation. The sand size affects the water conversion ratio and rate by affecting the specific surface of sand in unsaturated porous media. For the fine sand sample, the large specific surface causes a large gas-water contact area resulting in a higher water conversion rate, but causes a large water-sand contact area resulting in a low water conversion ratio (Cw=96.2%). The clay can reduce the water conversion rate and ratio, especially montmorillonite (Cw=95.8%). The crystal layer of montmorillonite affects the pore water conversion characteristics by hindering the conversion of interlayer water.©2022 China Geology Editorial Office.

ABSTRACT: Gas hydrate is one kind of potential energy resources that is buried under deep seafloor or frozen areas. The first trial offshore production from the silty reservoir was conducted in the South China Sea by the China Geological Survey (CGS). During this test, there were many unique characteristics different from the sand reservoir, which was believed to be related to the clayed silt physical properties. In this paper, simulation experiments, facilities analysis, and theoretical calculation were used to confirm the hydrate structure, reservoir thermo-physical property, and bond water movement rule. And the behavior of how they affected production efficiency was analyzed. The results showed that: It was reasonable to use the structure I rather than structure II methane hydrate phase equilibrium data to make the production plan; the dissociation heat absorbed by hydrate was large enough to cause hydrate self-protection or reformation depend on the reservoir thermal transfer and gas supply; clayed silt got better thermal conductivity compared to coarse grain, but poor thermal convection especially with hydrate; clayed silt sediment was easy to bond water, but the irreducible water can be exchanged to free water under high production pressure, and the most obvious pressure range of water increment was 1.9–4.9 MPa.

ABSTRACT: ontact area are two main ways to raise the productivity of hydrate. An exploitation technique based on large borehole with multi-lateral branches (LB & MB) was proposed in this paper. This technique is mainly intended for the clayey silt hydrate reservoir in the South China Sea, and its main purpose is to alleviate the sand output from formation for maintaining the stability of the reservoir and to greatly increase the gas productivity of the reservoir. In this paper, the following aspects were mainly expounded: definition of the basic geometric parameters for layout of multi-lateral branches in clayey silt hydrate reservoir, simulation of the stimulation effect of a typical well profile with two branches, and prediction and simulation of the reservoir failure risk in a well profile with eight branches. The results show that the LB & MB effectively improves the flow field in the formation, raises the productivity of the reservoir and may also help to decrease the produced water-gas ratio (WGR). When the lateral branches spacing is too small, the failure zones around adjacent lateral branches overlap each other, possibly causing reservoir failure in a larger range. Therefore, the geometric parameters of multi-lateral branches depend on the dual control of the productivity and geotechnical risk factor of reservoir. Further study is being carried out, so as to obtain the optimal combination of parameters of multi-lateral branches.

ABSTRACT: Sand production is a crucial problem during the process of extracting natural gas from hydrate reservoirs. To deal with sand-production problems systematically, a sand-production control system (SCS) is first proposed in this paper, specialized for pore-distributed clayey silt hydrate reservoirs. Secondly, a nodal system analysis method (NSAM) is applied to analyze the sand migration process during hydrate exploitation. The SCS is divided into three sub-systems, according to different sand migration mechanisms, and three key scientific problems and advances in SCS research in China Geological Survey are reviewed and analyzed. The maximum formation sanding rate, proper sand-control gravel size, and borehole blockage risk position were provided for clayey hydrate exploitation wells based on the SCS analysis. The SCS sub-systems are closely connected via bilateral coupling, and coordination of the subsystems is the basis of maintaining formation stability and prolonging the gas production cycle. Therefore, contradictory mitigation measures between sand production and operational systems should be considered preferentially. Some novel and efficient hydrate exploitation methods are needed to completely solve the contradictions caused by sand production.© 2019 China Geology Editorial Office.

ABSTRACT: This paper provides an overview of the developments in analytical and testing methods and experimental simulations on gas hydrate in China. In the laboratory, the analyses and experiments of gas hydrate can provide useful parameters for hydrate exploration and exploitation. In recent years, modern analytical instruments and techniques, including Laser Raman spectroscopy (Raman), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray computed tomography (X-CT), scanning electron microscope (SEM), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and high pressure differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), were applied in the study of structure, formation mechanisms, phase equilibrium, thermal physical properties and so forth of gas hydrates. The detection technology and time-domain reflectometry (TDR) technique are integrated to the experimental devices to study the physical parameters of gas hydrates, such as the acoustics, resistivity, thermal and mechanical properties. It is believed that the various analytical techniques together with the experimental simulations from large-scale to micro-scale on gas hydrate will play a significant role and provide a powerful support for future gas hydrate researches.

ABSTRACT: Natural gas hydrates (NGH) is one of key future clean energy resources. Its industrialized development will help remit the huge demand of global natural gas, relieve the increasing pressure of the environment, and play a vital role in the green sustainable growth of human societies. Based on nearly two decades’ studying on the reservoir characteristics in the South China Sea (SCS) and the knowledge of reservoir system, the China Geological Survey (CGS) conducted the first production test on an optimal target selected in Shenhu area SCS in 2017. Guided by the “three-phase control” exploitation theory which focused on formation stabilization, technologies such as formation fluid extraction, well drilling and completing, reservoir stimulating, sand controlling, environmental monitoring, monitoring and preventing of secondary formation of hydrates were applied. The test lasted for 60 days from May 10th when starting to pump, drop pressure and ignite to well killing on July 9th, with gas production of 3.09×105 m3 in total, which is a world record with the longest continuous duration of gas production and maximal gas yield. This successful test brings a significant breakthrough on safety control of NGH production.