Indo-U.S. expedition discovered natural gas in Indian Ocean
A large natural gas discovery has been made in the Indian Ocean
following a joint expedition by India and the U.S., opening up a new resource
to meet energy needs. India’s Oil Ministry and the U.S. Geological Survey made
the discovery of large, highly enriched accumulations of natural gas
hydrate — an icy form of the fuel — in the Bay of Bengal. This is the
first discovery of its kind in the Indian Ocean that has the potential to be
producible.
Natural gas hydrates:
Natural gas hydrates are a naturally occurring, ice-like
combination of natural gas and water found in oceans and polar regions.
- Gas hydrates are considered as vast resources of natural gas and are known to occur in marine sediments on continental shelf margins.
- By nature this gas is mostly methane. Methane gas hydrate is stable at the seafloor at water depths beneath about 500 meters.
Their occurrence:
The amount of gas within the world’s gas hydrate accumulations is
estimated to greatly exceed the volume of all known conventional gas resources.
Gas hydrate resources in India are estimated at 1,894 trillion cubic meters and
these deposits occur in Western, Eastern and Andaman offshore areas.
- According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gas hydrate deposits along ocean margins are estimated to exceed known petroleum reserves by about a factor of three.
