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Natural Gas Hydrate Exploration in the Gulf of Mexico

Jones, Benjamin Alexander
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1681827381093851

Abstract Details

2023, Master of Science, Ohio State University, Earth Sciences.
Over the past several decades, the Gulf of Mexico has been studied in increasingly greater detail by the scientific and energy industries to identify and characterize natural gas hydrate systems. Understanding these systems are necessary for determining gas hydrate’s resource potential, role in the global carbon cycle, and potential connection to marine geohazards. Several large-scale gas hydrate studies have been conducted in the Gulf of Mexico, but these studies focus on highly concentrated deposits found in coarse-grained sands. Most gas hydrate, however, is likely found disseminated in marine muds; there is very little work focused on these lower concentrated gas hydrate deposits. In this thesis, I use publicly available petroleum industry well logs to evaluate gas hydrate accumulations of both low and high concentrations throughout the Gulf of Mexico. This work provides detailed gas hydrate and well information that includes the depths and locations of intervals with evidence for gas hydrate accumulations, which can be used for future gas hydrate research. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the vast amount of publicly released industry data, which is rarely used in gas hydrate studies, can be a cost-effective and valuable resource for hydrate research. My data set consists of 78 digital industry well logs released as of June 2015 from the Gulf of Mexico that I use to identify and characterize natural gas hydrate; I find evidence of gas hydrate in 43 of these wells (55%). To find hydrate, I analyze gamma ray and resistivity log measurements within the gas hydrate stability zone and identify 0.5 Ωm or greater increases in resistivity above the water saturated background resistivity as gas hydrate. Furthermore, I analyze the relationship of using different types of well log formats to detect hydrate. A previous study in the Gulf of Mexico conducted by Majumdar et al. [2017] consisted of similar work evaluating gas hydrate accumulations with industry well logs, however, this data was analyzed in .tiff and .pdf formats which do not provide the same level of detail that digital logs provide. Majumdar et al. [2017] found evidence of gas hydrate in 124 out of the 798 wells analyzed (16%), which is strikingly different than the results of my study (55%). I hypothesize that using higher quality digital data for my analysis makes identifying gas hydrate easier, particularly for hydrate in lower concentrations, which accounts for the large difference in results. To confirm this, I analyze 45 wells from Majumdar et al. [2017] data set that were determined to have no gas hydrate within; using new digital well logs, I find evidence of gas hydrate in 33% of these wells. This digital data has allowed for the identification and characterization of more gas hydrate, especially for accumulations in lower concentrations, and demonstrates how it can aid significantly in the exploration process.
Ann Cook (Advisor)
Derek Sawyer (Committee Member)
David Cole (Committee Member)
59 p.
Earth; Geology; Geophysics
Natural Gas Hydrate; Gas Hydrate; Methane Hydrate; Well Logging; Well Logging and Gas Hydrate; Gas Hydrate Exploration; Gas Hydrate Characterization; Gulf of Mexico

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Jones, B. A. (2023). Natural Gas Hydrate Exploration in the Gulf of Mexico [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1681827381093851

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Jones, Benjamin. Natural Gas Hydrate Exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. 2023. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1681827381093851.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Jones, Benjamin. "Natural Gas Hydrate Exploration in the Gulf of Mexico." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2023. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1681827381093851

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1681827381093851
© 2023, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Natural Gas Hydrate Exploration in the Gulf of Mexico by Benjamin Alexander Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.