The objective of this Interagency Agreement is to provide geologic and geophysical technical support to the Alaska Gas Hydrate Production Field Experiment including the planning, operations, and analysis of the technical results of the test.

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) – Denver, CO

This agreement is intended to provide support to the DOE and its research partners in understanding, predicting, and testing the recoverability and production characteristics of onshore natural gas hydrate in the Greater Prudhoe Bay area on the Alaska North Slope (ANS) through the planning, operation, and analysis of the technical results of the planned Alaska North Slope Extended Gas Hydrate Production Test. To do so, the work to be conducted under this agreement is designed to contribute to the field implementation plan in support of the project well drilling, completion, and testing program. This cooperative project will also provide direct technical support to the field drilling and associated geologic and production test data acquisition phases of the field test. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) within this agreement will also play a key role in organizing and analyzing the geologic and production test data as it is collected during the planned Alaska North Slope Extended Gas Hydrate Production Test.

This project represents a collaborative approach by DOE and USGS to best use the talents of each organization to address critical issues pertaining to gas hydrate science. USGS will support the federal Gas Hydrate program goals for assessing the technical and economic viability of producing natural gas from methane hydrate by evaluating and facilitating opportunities for production testing in the natural laboratory of the ANS.

• Direct onsite leadership - participated in Alaska (AK) hydrate test field activities as representative of the U.S. project owner’s group during drilling operations.
• Completed real-time and continuous contribution to support decision making in AK field test drilling, logging, and coring operations.
• Coordinated collection and analysis of select sampling during AK field test drilling, logging, and coring operations.
• Prepared for onsite support of planned drilling, logging, and coring operations.
• Organized and prepared detailed geochemical sampling process and procedures for drilling and production operations. 
• Ongoing substantial technical contribution to Alaska hydrate test through review and evaluation key test operational and data acquisition systems and information including, but not limited to:
  • Logging programs
  • Pressure coring programs
  • Acoustic and seismic programs
  • Temperature and pressure monitoring systems
  • Geomechanical monitoring systems
  • Borehole and instrumentation monitoring systems

For results from work under the prior iteration of this interagency agreement please see the project summary for DE-FE0022898.

USGS continues ongoing support for all aspects of the planning and implementation  of the DOE-JOGMEC Alaska gas hydrate production test. They continue to provide on-the-ground support as needed as the project transitions from drilling/coring, through surface facilities construction and start up, and into the initiation of production testing which is slated to begin in the late spring or early summer of 2023.

Funding (Year 1-2): $182,114

NETL Project Manager – Richard Baker (Richard.Baker@netl.doe.gov)
USGS Principal Investigator – Tim Collett (TCollett@usgs.gov)