Fugro to Test for Gas Hydrates in South China Sea

Geo-intelligence and asset integrity solutions provider Fugro has been awarded a contract by China's Guangzhou Marine Geological Survey (GMGS) for gas hydrate exploration on the Northern Continental Slope of the South China Sea, it said February 21.

The contract is valued at about $40mn and the project is expected to commence in Q2 2018.

This is the fifth gas hydrate field research programme that Fugro will undertake for GMGS and the two companies have worked together in this field of research since 2007. Gas hydrates are a crystalline form of methane and water and exist in shallow sediments of outer continental margins. They are envisaged as a viable major energy resource for the future but so far, their low energy density has made them uneconomic.

Operated from drilling vessel, Fugro Voyager, the site characterisation programme comprises logging while drilling, pressure coring and geotechnical sampling. The report and assessment of gas hydrate reservoir volumes delivered by Fugro will be used by GMGS to plan China’s second gas hydrate marine production test scheduled for 2019.

In July 2017, a natural gas hydrate test project in the South China Sea was successfully completed, which was the first for the country.

Similarly, in May 2017, Japan confirmed that gas had been produced from methane hydrates during the country's second test.