Enthusiastic Canadian government sponsors of an international technical test team say a northern drilling success has opened up prospects of tapping a colossal new source natural gas — a frozen variety within reach of current Arctic operating capabilities.

Three experimental wells on the Mackenzie Delta transformed gas hydrates from a science project into an industrial target akin to the Alberta oil sands 30 years ago, the leader of the Canadian contingent in the trial said, as results were reported to the international earth-sciences and engineering community.

“We’re in a similar situation” to the early stages of oil sands development, said Jean-Serge Vincent, a scientist emeritus at Natural Resources Canada who was co-chairman of the Mallik gas hydrate research project. He said that just as oil sands pioneers showed extraction was possible long before they made it profitable, the gas hydrates team proved its objective is practical.

“The program demonstrated there is certainly technical feasibility of recovering gas hydrates,” Vincent said. “This was an experimental production test.”

The results were unveiled to 260 representatives of scientific and industrial agencies from 15 countries at a symposium in Japan. The data described a C$27 million (US$20 million) trial of tapping hydrates named after its site, a gas lease called Mallik held by Imperial Oil Ltd. on the Beaufort Sea coast 75 miles north of Inuvik.

Participants included three Alberta producers — BP Canada Energy, Chevron Canada Resources and Burlington Resources Canada — and the global Schlumberger oilfield services organization as well as agencies from Japan, Germany, the United States and India. American interests were represented by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of Energy.

Vincent said all the production data will be made available publicly as a result of the government element in the project. However, the field contractors involved have the option of making trade secrets out of technical aspects of new equipment they may have developed to carry out their assignments.

Initial Canadian industry response to the Mallik results was an acknowledgement that an intriguing new field is opening up, tempered by cautions that it remains a baby as a business proposition. “This is still probably a couple of decades away before it becomes economic,” said BP communications officer Alexandra Wright. “We’re pleased to be involved in this research that hopefully can make possible a new energy source.”

Chevron spokesman Dave Pommer said “the size of the resource is definitely interesting, but we don’t even see it on a pilot scale even within the next decade. It’s definitely a concept that’s in its infancy.”

By industry standards, the three experimental wells operated during the 2002-03 winter drilling season were shallow. But at the target depth of 1,150 metres (3,750 feet), geologists on the 100-member technical team estimated the program tapped a deposit larger than all the natural gas discovered by conventional exploration since the 1960s on the Mackenzie Delta and offshore in the Beaufort Sea.

Scientific estimates rate the global endowment of the new resource at an astronomical 279,000,000 trillion cubic feet (279 quintillion — 18 zeroes) — 55,800 times larger than the world’s 5,000 Tcf of proven conventional gas reserves and 4,650,000 times greater than the Canadian inventory of 59 Tcf.

Gas hydrates are ice that forms beneath northern land and in ocean depths in a common combination of cold temperature and high pressure. As the ice forms, its crystals trap methane made by the natural decay of remains of plants and animals in the water. The gas is environmentally friendly since it is virtually pure methane, without contaminants such as sulphur that often make conventional supplies hazardous and costly to develop.

Vincent said the Mallik experiments generated gas flows with three methods of “in situ” or underground separation: by heating the hydrates, lowering pressures in the deposits, and injecting other substances such as methanol. “The next step is a major, larger production test lasting for months.”

Vincent said the research consortium is crafting a strategy, with Natural Resources Canada committed to keeping the international effort going after leading it since the mid-1990s.

“We have plans to continue this research. We see the potential of gas hydrates as a new, more environmental fossil fuel. The possibility strongly exists,” Vincent said.

He said that as a business proposition, hydrates resemble difficult resource targets now in production such as gas in coal seams and “tight” or dense rock formations, as well as the oilsands. Such targets require creative use of available technology rather than breakthrough inventions by industry. “To a large extent, it’s using what they have in new ways,” Vincent said.

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