Scientific results from Gulf of Mexico Gas Hydrates Joint Industry Project Leg 1 drilling : introduction and overview

The Gulf of Mexico Gas Hydrates Joint Industry Project (JIP) is a consortium of production and service companies and some government agencies formed to address the challenges that gas hydrates pose for deepwater exploration and production. In partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and with scientific assistance from the U.S. Geological Survey and academic partners, the JIP has focused on studies to assess hazards associated with drilling the fine-grained, hydrate-bearing sediments that dominate much of the shallow subseafloor in the deepwater (>500 m) Gulf of Mexico. In preparation for an initial drilling, logging, and coring program, the JIP sponsored a multi-year research effort that included: (a) the development of borehole stability models for hydrate-bearing sediments; (b) exhaustive laboratory measurements of the physical properties of hydrate-bearing sediments; (c) refinement of new techniques for processing industry-standard 3-D seismic data to constrain gas hydrate saturations; and (d) construction of instrumentation to measure the physical properties of sediment cores that had never been removed from in situ hydrostatic pressure conditions. Following review of potential drilling sites, the JIP launched a 35-day expedition in Spring 2005 to acquire well logs and sediment cores at sites in Atwater Valley lease blocks 13/14 and Keathley Canyon lease block 151 in the northern Gulf of Mexico minibasin province. The Keathley Canyon site has a bottom simulating reflection at ∼392 m below the seafloor, while the Atwater Valley location is characterized by seafloor mounds with an underlying upwarped seismic reflection consistent with upward fluid migration and possible shoaling of the base of the gas hydrate stability (BGHS). No gas hydrate was recovered at the drill sites, but logging data, and to some extent cores, suggest the occurrence of gas hydrate in inferred coarser-grained beds and fractures, particularly between 220 and 330 m below the seafloor at the Keathley Canyon site. This paper provides an overview of the results of the initial phases of the JIP work and introduces the 15 papers that make up this special volume on the scientific results related to the 2005 logging and drilling expedition.

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[30]  Tae Sup Yun,et al.  Compressional and shear wave velocities in uncemented sediment containing gas hydrate , 2005 .

[31]  Emrys Jones,et al.  Modeling the Mechanical and Phase Change Stability of Wellbores Drilled in Gas Hydrates by the Joint Industry Participation Program (JIP) Gas Hydrates Project, Phase II , 2007 .

[32]  D. Fornari,et al.  A photographic and acoustic transect across two deep-water seafloor mounds, Mississippi Canyon, northern Gulf of Mexico , 2008 .

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[36]  Kevin M. Brown,et al.  Painting a picture of gas hydrate distribution with thermal images , 2005 .

[37]  J. Santamarina,et al.  THE IMPACT OF HYDRATE SATURATION ON THE MECHANICAL, ELECTRICAL, AND THERMAL PROPERTIES OF HYDRATE-BEARING SAND, SILTS, AND CLAY , 2008 .

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[42]  N. Dutta,et al.  Exploration for gas hydrates in the deepwater, northern Gulf of Mexico: Part II. Model validation by drilling , 2008 .

[43]  T. Collett,et al.  Detection of gas hydrate with downhole logs and assessment of gas hydrate concentrations (saturations) and gas volumes on the Blake Ridge with electrical resistivity log data , 2000 .

[44]  William E. Harrison,et al.  Gas hydrates (clathrates) causing pore-water freshening and oxygen isotope fractionation in deep-water sedimentary sections of terrigenous continental margins , 1981 .

[45]  M. Hovland,et al.  Potential Influence of Gas Hydrates on Seabed Installations , 2013 .

[46]  Tae Sup Yun,et al.  Observations related to tetrahydrofuran and methane hydrates for laboratory studies of hydrate‐bearing sediments , 2007 .

[47]  Gerald R. Dickens,et al.  Gas Hydrates in Marine Sediments: Lessons from Scientific Ocean Drilling , 2006 .

[48]  C. Paull,et al.  Geochemical constraints on the distribution of gas hydrates in the Gulf of Mexico , 2005 .

[49]  Wenyue Xu,et al.  Predicting the occurrence, distribution, and evolution of methane gas hydrate in porous marine sediments , 1999 .

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[51]  R. Coffin,et al.  Methane Hydrate Exploration, Atwater Valley, Texas-Louisiana Shelf: Geophysical and Geochemical Profiles , 2006 .

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[54]  Joo-yong Lee,et al.  Hydrate-bearing sediments: Formation and geophysical properties , 2007 .

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[56]  D. Hutchinson,et al.  Assessing sulfate reduction and methane cycling in a high salinity pore water system in the northern Gulf of Mexico , 2008 .

[57]  N. Dutta,et al.  Seismic Detection and Quantification of Gas Hydrates using Rock Physics and Inversion , 2004 .

[58]  Robert L. Kleinberg,et al.  Fracture-controlled gas hydrate systems in the northern Gulf of Mexico , 2008 .

[59]  Harry H. Roberts,et al.  Massive vein-filling gas hydrate: relation to ongoing gas migration from the deep subsurface in the Gulf of Mexico , 2001 .

[60]  W. Borowski,et al.  DETECTION OF METHANE GAS HYDRATE IN THE PRESSURE CORE SAMPLER ( PCS ) : VOLUME-PRESSURE-TIME RELATIONS DURING CONTROLLED DEGASSING EXPERIMENTS , 1999 .

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[62]  D. Hutchinson,et al.  Gas and gas hydrate distribution around seafloor seeps in Mississippi Canyon, Northern Gulf of Mexico, using multi-resolution seismic imagery , 2008 .

[63]  D. Hutchinson,et al.  Electromagnetic surveying of seafloor mounds in the northern Gulf of Mexico , 2008 .

[64]  K. Brown,et al.  Fracture networks and hydrate distribution at Hydrate Ridge, Oregon , 2006 .