POTENTIAL ASSESSMENT, EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION TEST OF NATURAL GAS HYDRATE

Natural gas hydrate is a clean and efficient environment-friendly fossil energy, widely distributed in deep-sea and permafrost zones of the world.The latest assessment shows that the amount of carbon resources stored in global hydrate deposits is between 500~3000 Gt.As a new type of unconventional energy, the resource has a huge potential even though the current resource rating forecast is still uncertain, and not all natural gas hydrates are exploitable with present technology.Natural gas hydrates of different forms constitute an energy pyramid, which shows the potential of exploitation of different types of hydrate resources.As an extremely important energy source, the prediction and development of natural gas hydrate resources potential has attracted great attention from world societies.Although the production test in South China Sea has got a big breakthrough, more work is still required to recover this kind of new energy economically and safely.