Alaska North Slope HYDRATE 02 Geo Data Well (GDW) Downhole Logging, Pressure Coring, and Completion Operations and Data
Timothy S. Collett, Scott Marsteller, Ray Boswell, William F. Waite, Stephen C. Phillips, John Pohlman, Margarita V. Zyrianova, Seth S. Haines, Jun Yoneda, Than Tin Aung, Norihiro Okinaka, Yoshihiro Nakatsuka, William Isaacson, Amanda Dial, Doug Cismoski, Peter Schultheiss, Mike Mimitz, Melanie Holland, Sukru MereyAbstract
The “Collaborative Gas Hydrate R&D Project in Alaska,” led by the Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and the U.S. Geological Survey, aims to examine and assess gas hydrate reservoir systems, their production behavior, potential environmental impacts, and extraction methodologies. The existing oil and gas infrastructure on the Alaska North Slope (ANS) has enabled long-term field studies and helped pave the way for evaluating Alaska’s gas hydrate production characteristics. In February 2023, a significant milestone was reached in Alaska’s history of gas hydrate-related energy studies with the establishment of a gas hydrate production test site in the Prudhoe Bay Unit (PBU) (an industry operational area). The pressure drawdown tests at this site started on October 24, 2023, and were completed on July 30, 2024. This endeavor followed earlier drilling efforts, including a stratigraphic test well and a geological data well, which verified the geological conditions at the proposed test site and confirmed its suitability for testing. The focus of this report is on operations conducted in the HYDRATE 02 Geo Data Well (GDW), which was completed in November 2022. The primary objective of GDW operations was to collect extensive geological data to facilitate site characterization and analysis of the production test results. This report describes the logging-while-drilling (LWD) and pressure coring programs used to gather data from two previously identified gas hydrate-bearing reservoirs (B1 and D1 sands) in the HYDRATE 01 Stratigraphic Test Well, completed in December 2018. This report also describes the advanced technology, including temperature and pressure gauges and fiber-optic systems, installed in the GDW to monitor geological conditions and the behavior of the gas hydrate-bearing reservoir during the depressurization test conducted in the HYDRATE P1 (PTW-1) well.