Analytical modeling of gas recovery from in situ hydrates dissociation

Exploration activities around the world have confirmed that in situ hydrates are widely available in permafrost and oceanic sediments. These hydrocarbon deposits have stimulated worldwide efforts to understand gas production from hydrate dissociation in a porous media. This work is a contribution towards these efforts. The present study uses depressurization-driven in situ hydrate dissociation, incorporates decomposition kinetics into the radial diffusivity equation, and develops a model to predict the performance of naturally occurring hydrates. The proposed model is simple yet useful and it does not require any empirical correlation. The model-predicted performance compares well with the published experimental studies on the hydrate dissociation in porous media. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.