Put forward the energy, people think of is often coal, oil, gas ignited the torch and not cold ice, but the Chinese science and technology workers can already be hidden in the bottom of the “ice” lit into the burning flame, let “Frost” from the dream into reality. From May 10, a steady stream of natural gas from more than 1200 meters deep under the bottom of more than 200 meters in the bottom of the mining up, lit the world’s largest offshore drilling platform, “Blue Whale One” spit fire device. This is the first time in China, but also the world’s first account for more than 90% of the amount of resources, the development of the most difficult muddy silt type reservoir combustible ice successfully achieved test mining. This test is not only for China’s future energy security, optimize the energy structure is of great significance, and may even give the world to replace the R & D investment pattern changes. However, China’s commercial development of combustible ice is still very far away.
China ‘s first sea combustible ice test success.
Ministry of Land and Resources Minister Jiang Daming announced on May 18, May 10, China from the South China Sea Shenhu waters depth of 1266 meters below the bottom of the river 203-277 meters of natural gas hydrate (also known as “combustible ice”) mineral To achieve a steady flow of 187 hours of continuous gas.
Jiang Daming said that this means that for the first time in China, it is the first time in the world to account for more than 90% of the amount of resources, the development of the most difficult muddy silt type reservoir combustible ice to achieve successful trial mining.
In this regard, Xiamen University, China Energy Policy Research Institute Lin Boqiang analysis of reporters, which is China and the global combustible ice mining history of a major event, but this is only test mining, rather than industrialization and commercial exploitation. Its main significance is to re-evoke the global attention to the combustible ice and attention to attract more countries combustible ice mining technology investment and research.
Ministry of Homeland China Geological Survey Deputy Director Li Jinfa is expected by 2030 years ago, China will achieve combustible ice commercial development.
The first test more than expected
The so-called combustible ice is geologically called natural gas hydrate (Natural Gas Hydrate), a kind of water molecules and gas molecules composed of ice-like cage inclusions, from which can be separated from methane (ie natural gas).
Because combustible ice is like ice, it is called ice, and because it can be lit as solid alcohol, it is called “combustible ice”.
According to the more consistent resource evaluation of scientists, the global natural gas reserves of 2 × 10 ^ 16 cubic meters, is the remaining natural gas reserves (1.56 × 10 ^ 14 cubic meters) of 128 times, is the most popular unconventional natural gas resources (923 Trillion cubic meters) of more than 20 times, the prospects are broad, because it is called “belongs to the future energy”. And even scientists have suggested that only the bottom of the combustible ice reserves, enough to use 1000 years of human use.
Specific to China, the South China Sea is the most important distribution area of combustible ice in China, and it is also the region with the best prospecting area for combustible ice mineralization and prospecting.
The South China Sea Shenhu sea gas hydrate test by the Ministry of Land and Resources China Geological Survey is responsible for, PetroChina Group under the China Petroleum and Ocean Engineering Company is the pilot of the mining contractor.
In 2016, the geological survey staff around the trial in the Shenhu sea area to carry out drilling stations 8, all found combustible ice.
“In March 2016, we officially began preparing for the combustible ice test, when the drilling time was set on March 28, 2017,” said Qiu Haijun, deputy director of the foundation of the China Geological Survey, It ‘s impossible to finish the task on time, if it’ s not going to be hard to accumulate the amount of geological data.
China Geological Survey Bureau of Guangzhou Ocean Geological Survey Bureau of mineral hydrate room director, trial production project implementation project leader Lu Jingan introduction, exploration shows, God Fox has 11 ore body, an area of 128 square kilometers, resource reserves of 150 billion cubic meters , Equivalent to 150 million tons of oil reserves.
As of May 18 at 10 o’clock, the cumulative gas production of more than 120,000 cubic meters, the highest output of 35,000 cubic meters / day, the average daily production of 16,000 cubic meters, of which methane content up to 99.5%, exceeding the expected target.
This marks the success of our first attempt to mine. In this regard, Li Jinfa explained that the so-called successful trial mining, the first daily test to take the gas to reach more than 10,000 cubic meters, the second is a continuous gas production week. All of our indicators exceed the target. So our country is the world’s natural gas hydrate development success of the first country.
Previously, Japan in 2013 in Aichi Prefecture southeast of the trough for combustible ice test mining, but due to sand and other technical problems in the first six days after the forced to stop in 6 days time to extract 120,000 cubic meters of natural gas The In April 2017, Japan in the same sea for a second test, the first test wells accumulated production of 35,000 cubic meters, May 15 again due to the problem of sand and stop gas production.
The so-called sand, that is, oil and gas wells in the production process, due to excessive production pressure, sandstone oil and gas layer rock loose and other reasons, so that the formation of sand into the wellbore, blocking oil and gas channels, causing oil and gas wells to stop production of the phenomenon.
In this regard, the Guangzhou Ocean Geological Survey, former chief engineer Huang Yongxiang analysis of the reporter, “compared to Japan in the trial when the test reservoir encountered a fine sand problem, we are more lucky. Our test reservoir is mainly small Muddy silt, it is easy to filter out, will not plug the outlet pipe.
Huang Yongxiang explained that from the level of technical equipment, we are synchronized with the world, but there is no good reason to say that our technical equipment level must be higher than Japan.
The road to commercial exploitation is still far away
It is noteworthy that this test is done safely and environmentally friendly, and safety and environmental issues are often considered a major challenge for combustible ice mining.
The test plan, on the one hand, according to the hydrate area submarine topography features, engineering geological features, hydrate reservoir characteristics, through the rational design of the well position and step-down program, from the engineering design to avoid the occurrence of methane leakage caused by the environment Problems and disaster problems.
On the other hand, through the laying of submarine terrain, gas leakage and other monitoring equipment, to build a seawater – seabed – underground integrated environmental safety monitoring system to achieve the temperature, pressure, methane concentration and seabed stability parameters of real-time, the whole process of monitoring.
In this regard, the Ministry of Homeland China Geological Survey bureau bell said that the success of this combustible ice test success, on the one hand, we can test the early formation of the theoretical technology and equipment system of scientific; the other hand, through the large-scale professional high The difficulty of joint scientific and technological research, can prompt the technical staff to quickly grasp the deep sea entry, deep sea exploration and deep sea development technology to promote the commercial development of combustible ice resources in the process.
“The success of this test can only be regarded as a success, in accordance with the daily production capacity of more than 10,000 cubic meters is successful.If it is 20,000 cubic meters per day or higher target, whether it can do safe production and environment-friendly , There are still a lot of uncertainty. “Lin Boqiang analysis.
Li Jinfa said the next step, the mining team will continue in the vicinity of the waters of 2-3 different mining areas and types of mining work, the accumulation of experience for the 2030 years ago to lay the foundation for combustible ice commercial development.
Huang Yongxiang introduced, in general, in a test reservoir to achieve the expected production time and production of the test objectives, will not continue to put into trial mining. Although this is not announced the cost of trial mining, but is expected to invest a large scale.
It is worth noting that China’s combustible ice development prospects. According to the “China Energy and Mineral Geological Survey” released in 2016, China’s combustible ice predicts that the prospect of resources is over 100 billion tons of oil equivalent and attractive.
The data show that China’s combustible ice is mainly distributed in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau permafrost and the northeastern permafrost.
According to the rough estimate of China Petroleum, the amount of resources is about 64.97 × 10 ^ 12 cubic meters, 3.38 × 10 ^ 12 cubic meters, 12.5 × 10 ^ 12 cubic meters and 2.8 × 10 ^ 12 cubic meters.
Among them, the South China Sea northern slope of the amount of combustible ice reached 18.5 billion tons of oil equivalent, equivalent to the South China Sea deepwater exploration has proven oil and gas reserves of 6 times, to 50% of China’s total land oil.
“Our combustible ice mining equipment and technology to be a breakthrough, the future but also the development of specialized combustible ice mining technology and drilling equipment and to prevent methane leakage and seabed collapse of the technology.” Huang Yongxiang analysis.
Lin Boqiang pointed out that the combustible ice commercial road is still relatively far away, which is the success of the test and did not cause great repercussions in the international one of the reasons, because we all know that combustible ice commercialization of the difficulty of large.
Academician Jin Qinghao of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, once at the Second Energy Forum held by the National Energy Board and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that based on the current situation of combustible ice research and technical reserves in China, combined with the progress of foreign combustible ice test, Ice mining technology and equipment breakthroughs to complete the industrialization of combustible ice started, before and after 2030 may be able to achieve the commercialization of combustible ice.
Data show that the mainstream of the international combustible ice development methods, mainly thermal excitation method, decompression method, the actual chemical injection method, solid mining method, carbon dioxide conversion method and a variety of development mode combination, but these methods still exist low production efficiency , Mining conditions demanding, all materials are expensive and the risk of environmental problems, need to be further improved.
“Combustible ice development technology and equipment is a future-oriented reserve, and a country alone is a fundamental breakthrough, and it is only possible to achieve qualitative change when more and more countries are joining the combustible ice technology.” Lin Boqiang analysis.
