Methane Ice

For the second time of my useful life, geology is becoming part of me. The latest news to-date is that the 100-ton dome, which is designed to funnel leaking oil from the Gulf, is lowered into sea to cap oil leak this Friday. It is expected to be operational next Monday, when a large part of the oil would then be funneled up to a containment vessel on the surface for storage and processing. The BP is racing to contain an estimated 200,000 gallons of crude spewing into the sea daily, threatening the ecologically fragile Gulf Coast wetlands and shorelines.

Well, it is not my intention to dwell more than being told. What interesting to my finding is the possible cause to what went wrong in the Gulf. What possibly happened was that the drilling hit the area of unusual ice-like crystals called methane hydrates, hence the catastrophic oil spills.

We know for sure in the last 10 or 15 years, the industry will avoid methane hydrates, which a well known geological hazard and they are dangerous. But the rush to produce more oil for domestic consumption has forced companies like BP to take bigger risks by drilling in deep waters that are a breeding ground for hydrates. More worrying it’s the recent approval by President Barack Obama to drill in the Arctic Ocean, which could expose a fragile and remote environment to additional risks from catastrophic oil spills.

Methane hydrates only exist in cold water – just above or below freezing and at the undersea pressures found in deep water off the continental shelf. This slushy of sea mixture and methane gas makes drilling more complicated and makes the seafloor unstable. If hydrates are warmed by oil moving through pipes, they can turn into methane gas (known as ‘kick’ to drillers) that can shoot back up the drilling pipe and ignite the rig – a possible cause of the blast aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20.

In 2003, Unocal abandoned plans to drill in the deep water off Indonesia for the same reason. China has delayed plans for offshore oil development after finding large hydrate fields. The location of methane hydrate fields are well mapped but decisions are always commercial – a tug between risk and reward. As at now, the industry’s drilling and spill clean-up technology hasn’t caught up with the economic imperative to produce more oil.