The Economic Aspect of Gas Hydrate Development

경제성 측면에서의 가스하이드레이트 개발 가치

The price of natural gas import continues to rise, as well as its domestic consumption rate. This research examined the economic feasibility of domestically developing and producing gas hydrate to substitute imported natural gas. Today, the technology to commercially produce gas hydrate is still lacking; however, if the gas hydrate is able to be commercially produced domestically and replace imported natural gas, the annual economic benefit for the Republic of Korea would be 211 - 833 USD/ton. From the industry's point of view, gas hydrate is a high value investment since one can expect an annual profit of over 150USD/ton. The commercial value of gas hydrate development will increase as long as the natural gas market continues to expand and as the increase of natural gas consumption remains steady. With further development of technology, one can anticipate an even higher expected return on the investment.