The Hindu Business Line : Huge potential seen for India’s abundant gas hydrate reserves

New Delhi, Feb. 6 India’s attempts to tap the alternate sources of energy like gas hydrates seems to have yielded results, making the country join the select league of nations such as the US and Japan researching on it.

The results of the first advanced gas hydrate exploration programme conducted in the eastern offshore through the Indian National Gas Hydrate Programme (NGHP) has shown that the country has around 2,000 trillion cubic ft (tcf) of prognostic resources of gas hydrates.

Speaking to the presspersons, the Director General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), Mr V.K. Sibal, said, “Even if 10 per cent of these resources are recoverable, that is a huge potential waiting to be tapped. The global gas hydrate resources are estimated to be huge. Although exploration and exploitation of gas hydrates pose significant challenges, the opportunities are unlimited.”

‘Ice like’ combination

Gas hydrates are naturally occurring ‘ice like’ combination of natural gas and water that have the potential to be abundant new source of energy. Global resources of gas hydrates are estimated to be huge.

Mr Sibal was speaking at the sidelines of the ‘International Conference on Gas Hydrates’ here on Wednesday. “These have been found in Krishna Godavari, Mahanadi, and Andaman basin,” he said, adding that “one of the richest marine gas hydrate accumulations ever discovered has been delineated and sampled in the Krishna Godavari Basin.”

“Till now, we have drilled at 20 sites and 11, all of them off the east coast, have given us gas hydrate,” he said. The NGHP in its second phase will conduct seismic surveys to map the hydrate pools.

In the first phase, $ 37 million were spent. “If mined and brought to atmospheric conditions, they produce 160 times their volume of methane but the technical challenges of realising them as resource is immense,” he said.

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