Messoyakha

Russians begin a decade of producing gas in Messoyakha, possibly from hydrates... 

In 1967, the Soviets discovered the first major hydrate deposit in the permafrost (Makogon, 1987). The hydrate deposit in the Messoyakha field has been estimated to involve at least one-third of the entire gas reservoir, with depths of hydrates as great as 900 m. During the decade beginning in 1969, more than 5 x 109 m3 of gas were produced from hydrates in the Messoyakha field. The information in the Soviet literature on the production of gas from the Messoyakha field is discussed in Chapter 7. Table 7.4 in Chapter 7 also lists other locations in Russia, including the Black Sea, Caspian Sea, and Lake Baikal, where evidence for hydrates has been provided from sample recovery or BSR (bottom simulating reflectors) data. 

Chapter 7 discusses in situ hydrates in the oceans and permafrost. Seven key concepts are presented for hydrates in nature. These concepts are illustrated in four field case studies for hydrate assessment (Blake Bahama Ridge, Hydrate Ridge) and production (Messoyakha and Mallik, 2002). 

Case Study 3 Messoyakha (Hydrate Production in Permafrost)... 

The Messoyakha gas hydrate field is the first exemplar for gas production from hydrate in the permafrost. Hydrates were produced from this field semicontinu-ously for over 17 years. The field is located in the northeast of western Siberia, close to the junction of the Messoyakha River and the Yenisei River, 250 km west of the town of Norilsk, as shown in Figure 7.29. 

A suite of well logs from Well Number 136 of the Messoyakha field is presented in Figure 7.32 by Sapir et al. (1973). The Soviet work indicated the need to use a... 

Figure 7.29 Location of Messoyakha gas hydrate field. (Reproduced courtesy of U.S. Dept, of Energy (Krason and Ciesnik, 1985).)...

The Messoyakha field has been produced through both inhibitor injection and depressurization, as well as combinations of the two. The inhibitor injection tests, presented in Table 7.14 from the combined results by Sumetz (1974) and Makogon (1981, p. 174), frequently gave dramatic short-term increases in production rates, due to hydrate dissociation in the vicinity of each injected well bore. In the table, methanol and mixtures of methanol and calcium chloride were injected under pressure, using a cement aggregate. For long-term dissociation of hydrates, depressurization was used. 

Test Results from Inhibitor Injection in the Messoyakha Field... 

As the Messoyakha reservoir attained the pressure at point L, the average pressure stabilized for 2 years to point M, indicating that the volume of gas recovered was replenished by the gas liberated from the hydrate. The difference between... 

Figure 7.34 Messoyakha pressure and temperature with hydrate production (top) away from hydrate face (Makogon, 1988), (bottom) hypothesized at hydrate face (Poettmann, Personal Communication, July 20, 1988).

Since 1982 there has only been a modest production of the Messoyakha reservoir. The amount of gas withdrawn has been equivalent to the amount of gas liberated from the hydrate. The total amount of gas liberated from hydrates thus far has amounted to 36% of the total gas withdrawn from the field. It is noted further that the position of the gas-water interface did not change over the 17-year period of the production of the field. 

While the Messoyakhan well was an engineering production application from hydrates, the Mallik 2002 well provided the first scientifically documented evidence that gas could be produced from hydrates. It may be suggested that this concept had been shown before at Messoyakha (Makogon, 1988), however, while there is widespread agreement that hydrates did play some part in Messoyakhan production, some authors (e.g., Collett and Ginsburg, 1998) have suggested that a detailed understanding of the role of hydrates in Messoyakhan production is unclear. 

Another perspective relating Messoyakha to Mallik 2002 is that applications drive research, as suggested in the preface. That is, the engineering production of hydrates in the Messoyakha field over the decade of the 1970s provided an impetus for further research with scientifically enhanced tests at Mallik 2002, which were not feasible at the time of Messoyakhan production. Consider only three differences of many ... 

At Messoyakha, production from gas hydrates began substantially about 2 years after the initial depressurization of the gas reservoir underlying hydrates, as shown in Figure 7.33. As indicated below, the Mallik 5L-38 site was chosen because the presence of hydrates had been validated there twice before (Mallik L-38 in 1972 and Mallik 2L-38 in 1998). Yet the Mallik site had no BSR because only a few meters of free gas underlay the hydrates, making Messoyakha-like depressurization problematic. However, in any short-term production testing, it is... 

Many modern scientific tools were applied to Mallik that were not available at the time of Messoyakha. For example, well logs had advanced substantially so that it was possible to determine, for example, the porosity, permeability, and hydrate saturation of the sediments at Mallik, which were not available at Messoyakha. In addition, reservoir models for hydrate production could be based upon well-constrained Mallik 2002 production data, such as pressure stimulation tests over constrained well intervals or thermal stimulation tests. 

Estimates place the world reserves of natural gas hydrates as being in the region of 5 X 1013 m3 on land, mostly in the permafrost regions of Alaska and Siberia, as well as a further 5-25 X 1015 m3 of gas in the oceans, particularly around Central America. This figure is around twice that of the total fossil fuel reserve this is an enormous wealth of energy which will become increasingly important as fossil fuels run out. Indeed, in the Russian Federation the enormous gas hydrate deposit at Messoyakha has been used as a natural gas source since 1971. 

Arshinov, S. A., Kolodeznyy, P. A., and Semerikov, A. A. (1971). Reducing Methane Hydrates in Boreholes of the Gas Field of Messoyakha with CaCl2. Gazovoye Delo 12, 3-5. 

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