Experimental study for natural gas production from hydrate reservoir by electric heating method

In this study, an experimental apparatus has been designed and set-up to analyse the dissociating phenomena of hydrate in porous rock using electric heating method supplied at downhole. The electric heat injecting experiments have been performed to investigate the heat transfer within the core, the dissociating phenomena of hydrate, and the productivities of dissociated gas and water. These experiments were under constant heat injecting method as well as preheating methods. From the experimental results, it is seen that the hydrates is dissociated along the phase equilibrium curve and dissociation of hydrate is accelerated with heat. The injected heat is consumed for the dissociation and also it is lost together with outflow of the dissociated gas and water. From the investigation of gas producing behavior for various heat injecting methods, as the injected heat is greater, dissociation is accelerated faster at outlet and hence the initial gas production becomes higher. Also, it is shown that the initial gas productivity under the constant heating method is better, however, the energy efficiency is low because of smaller amount of the produced gas comparing to the amount of heat injected. In the experiments of preheating method, it was seen that gas production only initial stage is different with the preheating time, but the producing behaviors of gas production are similar.