FSUE VNIIOkeangeologia named after I. S. Gramberg:

T. V. Matveeva, Head of Laboratory for the Unconventional Hydrocarbon Resources, Candidate of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, e-mail: tv_matveeva@mail.ru

This abstract is devoted to the problems of the gas recovery from natural gas hydrates, which are formed in subaquatic environments. Due to the significant interest of international scientific community to hydrocarbon hydrates, as the potential mineral resource, this study is relevant and important. Exploitation of the gas hydrates is a subject of the nearest future. Brief characteristic of the gas hydrate accumulations of different types is represented. It is argued that the gas hydrates are one of the forms of the natural gas, existing in the certain thermodynamic and geological conditions at the subsoils. Most attention is paid to the consideration of mechanisms and conditions of subaquatic gas hydrate accumulations which are formed in the near bottom sediments due to the concentrated hydrocarbon gases (mainly methane) discharge towards the seafloor. Method, which is presented in this paper, is adapted on the exploration of near-bottom gas hydrate accumulations, as they emphasize a first-priority exploration interest, due to their shallow sediment depth, considerable gas concentrations and potential renewable resources. The discussed invention is a simple and effective method which allows to reduce the subaquatic gas hydrate accumulations development cost. The main point of the method consists of the infringement of the gas hydrate stability conditions by means of the mechanical effect on gas hydrate-bearing unconsolidated sediments, transformation of gas from hydrated state into free state and following sampling. Brief recommendations for investigation and localization of gas hydrates` accumulations are presented. Main concept of this method realization is also discussed.

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