WATCHING THE WORLD: Japan exploring methane hydrate

Oct. 16, 2006
In a bid to move Japan toward energy self-sufficiency, the country’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry is promoting technologies to provide new fuel sources, among them methane hydrate.

In a bid to move Japan toward energy self-sufficiency, the country’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry is promoting technologies to provide new fuel sources, among them methane hydrate.

Described by some observers as a sherbet-like substance, methane hydrate is a mixture of methane trapped in frozen water. Some reports say the energy generated by each cubic meter of hydrate is equal to that released by up to 180 cu m of natural gas.

Word of the new resource emerged last February when a research team from the University of Tokyo and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) announced that it had successfully tapped a cache of methane hydrate lying relatively close to the seabed 30 km north of Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture.

Near the seabed

The new cache was said to be the first discovered in Asia lying relatively close to the seabed, making it fairly easy to extract, unlike most known deposits, which exist hundreds of meters below the ocean floor.

JAMSTEC identified the methane hydrate deposit off the coast of Joetsu at ocean depths of 800-1,000 m and successfully extracted samples from the site by inserting a 10 cm-diameter tube just 6-12 m into the ocean floor. Seabeds around Japan are now thought to contain 7 trillion cu m of methane hydrate, equal to 100 years of natural gas consumption in Japan at the current rate of use. It will thus come as no surprise to learn that the Japanese government hopes to extract and use its of subsea methane hydrate to reduce its dependence on crude oil, a dependence made all the more uncertain by future price rises due to supply-demand conditions and geopolitical risks.

Tests in Canada

Indeed, starting about December, METI, and Japan Oil, Gas & Metals National Corp. plan to conduct methane production tests in northwestern Canada with the Canadian government. If the experiments go well, the Japanese interests may begin trial extractions of methane hydrate from the Pacific Ocean floor by fiscal 2009.

The Japanese government, which aims to begin commercialized extraction of methane hydrate in fiscal 2017, believes that commercial methane hydrate harvesting can become a reality if low-cost, high volume production methods are developed.

It is not alone in that belief.

China plans to spend $100 million over the next decade on studying natural gas hydrates, and trial exploration of methane hydrate is expected to become viable between 2010 and 2015. According to one report, China so far has discovered enormous deposits of gas hydrates in offshore areas; those spotted in the northern part of the South China Sea are expected to amount to half the country’s onshore oil resources.

But the National Development and Reform Commission said that further technological breakthroughs were necessary before the fuel would be commercially developed. Doubtlessly, the Chinese will be keeping a very close eye on developments in Japan.