There have been many methods for producing methane from gas hydrate reservoirs in permafrost and sea floor sediments. In East Sea of Korea, it is presumed that the thick fractured shale deposits could be Class 2 or 3. Here we present the production of methane from gas hydrate deposit in East Sea with industrial flue gases from steel company, refineries, and other sources. The in-situ NMR measurement suggests that 42% of methane in hydrate cages have been replaced by carbon dioxide and nitrogen in preliminary test. Further studies are presented to evaluate the replacement ratio of methane hydrate at corresponding flue gas concentration.
November 2007, Ulleung Basin Gas Hydrate Expedition (UBGH 1) successfully explored and recovered gas hydrate bearing sediments at three different locations in East Sea of Korea. The dominant sediments form the three locations were siliceous and calcareous clays and gas hydrate was detected at all three sites as pore filling material within the layers. Quantification of gas hydrate from porewater freshening analysis showed that gas hydrate sand layers contained an average of 30% gas hydrate by pore volume. Methane was the predominant gas within core voids as well as in gas hydrate at all three sites, while ethane was 0.3 or less of most gas samples. It is estimated that the deposit contains about 600 million m3 of natural gas and could meet the country's gas needs for about 30 years. The growing recognition of the global scale of naturally occurring gas hydrate has raised a number of questions. Among those questions, one issue that has been gathering the attention is a possible technology to develop the gas hydrate deposits. Concepts for methane production from gas hydrate initially included sediment mining, however work conducted at Mallik has shown that production at meaningful rates could be possible by tailoring existing technologies.
