Research paperGeologic implications of gas hydrates in the offshore of India: Results of the National Gas Hydrate Program Expedition 01
Section snippets
Editor's note
This report is part one of a two-report series that summarizes the results of the Indian National Gas Hydrate Program Expedition 01 (NGHP-01). This first report (Collett et al., this issue) in this series summarizes the overall operational and scientific accomplishments of NGHP-01, while the second report reviews the occurrence and geologic controls on gas hydrates in the Krishna–Godavari Basin, the Mahanadi Basin, the Andaman Sea, and the Kerala–Konkan Basin (Kumar et al., this issue).
Earlier investigations
The first indication of the presence of gas hydrates in the offshore India dates to 1984, when the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) (Chopra, 1985) identified bottom-simulating reflectors (BSRs), which are often attributed to the presence of gas hydrate, on seismic lines in the Andaman Island offshore area. In 1997, the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) generated the first gas hydrate resource map of India, which depicts the gas hydrate stability zone (GHSZ) in the Indian
Future research and direction
The occurrence of gas hydrate in mostly fracture-dominated systems in the offshore of India as documented during NGHP-01 is somewhat troubling when considering their energy resource potential. The prospects for economic recovery of natural gas from fracture-filling forms of gas hydrate occurring in mostly fine-grained sediments is likely limited with current technologies, and major improvements in extraction methods are required to enable commercial exploitation of such deposits (as reviewed by
Summary
NGHP-01 was among the most complex and comprehensive gas hydrates field ventures yet conducted. The successful recovery of a wealth of log and core data over a range of geologic environments has provided invaluable information on the geologic controls on the occurrence of gas hydrate in nature. The NGHP-01 expedition was an excellent example of the international spirit of collaboration that continues to infuse gas hydrates research.
The operational highlights of NGHP-01 included the following:
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Acknowledgment
The editors wish to thank those that contributed to the success of the Indian National Gas Hydrate Program Expedition 01 (NGHP-01). NGHP-01 was planned and managed through collaboration between the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (India), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and the Consortium for Scientific Methane Hydrate Investigations (CSMHI) led by Overseas Drilling Limited (ODL) and FUGRO McClelland Marine Geosciences (FUGRO). The
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