Natural Gas

What could be the perfect set-up for a science-fiction novel or movie, scientists have found evidence of methane gas escaping into the atmosphere in an uncontrolled release from the Arctic Ocean seabed off the Siberian coast as the water gets warmer.

Orjan Gustafsson, a researcher from Stockholm University in Sweden, and one of the expedition leaders, sent out his observations in an e-mail. He said the expedition has found “an extensive area of intense methane release.

“At earlier sites we had found elevated levels of dissolved methane. Yesterday, for the first time, we documented a field where the release was so intense that the methane did not have time to dissolve into the seawater but was rising as methane bubbles to the sea surface. These ‘methane chimneys’ were documented on echo sounder and with seismic [instruments].”

Besides a very odd thing to happen, the discovery has elevated the arguments about global climate change again. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is considered to be about 20 times more potent that carbon dioxide.

In his e-mail, Gustafsson says, “The conventional thought has been that the permafrost ‘lid’ on the sub-sea sediments on the Siberian shelf should cap and hold the massive reservoirs of shallow methane deposits in place.

“The growing evidence for release of methane in this inaccessible region may suggest that the permafrost lid is starting to get perforated and thus leak methane. The permafrost now has small holes.

“We have found elevated levels of methane above the water surface and even more in the water just below. It is obvious that the source is the seabed.”

Scientists from the U.S., Russia, Canada, Japan and India have been working for years to try and safely unlock the secret of methane hydrates–naturally occurring methane gas trapped by cold and pressure in ice. These hydrates are found on the seabed of every ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. China has joined the crowd, announcing this year that over the next 10 years, it will budget about $100 million to study finding ways of harvesting methane hydrates.

In 2008, Canadian and Japanese researchers extracted a constant stream of natural gas from a test project at the Mallik gas hydrate field in the Mackenzie River delta–this site was featured in the TV-show “Ice Road Truckers.” This was the second such drilling at Mallik: the first took place in 2002 and used heat to release methane. In the newest experiment, researchers were able to extract the gas by lowering the pressure, without heating, requiring significantly less energy.

The Japanese government has said research suggests there is enough methane available in deep deposits off the coast of the Japan to satisfy their gas needs for more than 100 years.

Now, though, an uncontrolled release means an unknown amount of methane has been bubbling to the surface off the coast of Siberia and bleeding off into the atmosphere. The researchers said they want more time to try and determine what is going to happen next.

Stay tuned. More to come. If this doesn’t get the environmentalists and politicians upset, nothing will. It should also reheat the global warming argument again. This story is far from being over, but in the meantime, keep your eyes on the Arctic.

–John A. Sullivan, News Editor, Oil and Gas Investor, www.OilandGasInvestor.com, jsullivan@hartenergy.com

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