The items listed below have appeared previously on the Methane Hydrate home page.

• July, 2008 - USGS Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellowship Opportunity: Climate and Hydrates - The USGS has released details of the Mendenhall postdoctoral fellowship competition for FY2010 [external site- USGS], and Opportunity #4 seeks a recent Ph.D. in geology, oceanography, physics, or chemistry to work on research problems linking climate and methane hydrates. The posting will be in Woods Hole, MA, and the research advisor is Carolyn Ruppel(cruppel@usgs.gov). Be advised that the application deadline is November 12, 2008.

  Applicants should be interested in pursuing fundamental research that will advance understanding of the impact of climate change on marine and/or permafrost gas hydrates and/or the possible impact of gas hydrate dissociation and increased methane emissions on the ocean-atmosphere system. The incumbent’s research project may focus on a time period of any duration starting with the Last Glacial Maximum and extending into the future; however, projects that can expand our understanding of Holocene, contemporary or future methane hydrate-climate interaction are preferred. A list of potential project topics is provided at the link above.

• June, 2008 - Cooperative Hydrate Research Advanced by Three International Agreements
  In April and June, the US Department of Energy signed agreements for cooperative research efforts with representatives from three countries with gas hydrate research programs: India, Korea and Japan. Officials from DOE and the Indian government signed a Memorandum of Understanding for Cooperation in Methane Hydrate Research and Development in New Delhi on April 4. The agreement provides for exchange of information and personnel in the areas of exploration and quantification of natural gas hydrates, resource assessments, laboratory characterization, and production testing.

  On April 18 Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and South Korea Minister Lee Youn-ho signed a Statement of Intent to exchange information on gas hydrate topics and technologies. Korea is looking to gas hydrates as a future energy source and hopes to take part in US pilot testing early next year.

  And most recently, on June 6 Secretary Bodman and Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Akira Amari signed a Statement of Intent for cooperation in methane hydrate research and development. Japan has an active methane hydrate R&D program that has resulted in the discovery of large offshore hydrate deposits and successful short-term production testing in the Canadian arctic.

  The Department of Energy will be meeting with representatives of the three countries in the next few months to define specific projects and research areas for cooperation related to hydrate research.
   

• May, 2008 - Methane Hydrates Funding Opportunity Announcement Extension
  The purpose of this amendment is to extend the closing date for Technical Topic Area 1, “Resource Assessment and Field Testing on the Alaska North Slope” (DE-PS26-08NT43260-01) and Technical Topic Area 4, “Hydrate in the Global Environment” (DE-PS26-08NT43260-04) of the Funding Opportunity Announcement, "Methane HYdrates 2008". Because of confusion surrounding the closing date for Technical Topic Area of Interest 1 and Technical Topic Area of Interest 4 of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), the closing date for these topic areas is extended to Monday, June 16, 2008 at 8:00 PM EST. Applicants who have already submitted applications under these Areas of Interest need not resubmit.
• 2008 - Well log Data From BP-DOE-US "Mount Elbert" Test Available Digital well log data acquired at the February 2007 gas hydrates test well at Milne Point, Alaska are now available. Data include Gamma ray, neutron porosity, density porosity, three-dimensional high resolution resistivity, acoustics including compressional- and shear-wave data and nuclear magnetic resonance.
• 2008 - Call for Papers: Gas Hydrates Symposium at the American Chemical Society 2009 National Meeting
  The 237th American Chemical Society National Meeting, to be held March 22-26, 2009 in Salt Lake City, Utah, will feature a Gas Hydrates Symposium with several sessions on natural gas hydrates. If you are interested in presenting a paper, contact symposium chairs Carolyn Koh or Dendy Sloan at the Colorado School of Mines Center for Hydrate Research (ckoh@mines.edu or esloan@mines.edu) before March 1, 2008.
• 2008 - DOE-NETL Methane Hydrate Program Releases Research Funding Opportunity   The Department of Energy (DOE), National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) released a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) on January 30, 2008 focused on soliciting research that will support ongoing efforts to determine the potential of methane hydrates as a future energy source. The funding opportunity seeks proposals that will: 1) evaluate opportunities for production testing in Alaska; 2) develop production systems for high-saturation subsurface sandstone reservoirs; and 3) develop new tools for detecting and characterizing hydrates via remote sensing applications, particularly deep marine electro-magnetics (EM), in association with new or ongoing field projects. DOE is also anticipating an additional request for projects probing the links between gas hydrates and global climate/global carbon cycling at a later date. For further information regarding the FOA, please visit the DOE-NETL business / solicitation website .
• 2008 - NETL Researchers Pursue Gas Hydrates Across the Globe Over the past 18 months, NETL researchers have pursued natural gas hydrates from India to Korea, from the Equator to the Arctic Circle.
• 2007 - Third Recipient of a Methane Hydrate Research Fellowship Selected - Dr. Laura Lapham, a post-doctoral researcher at Florida State University, has been selected as the third recipient of a Methane Hydrate Research Fellowship. Dr. Lapham will investigate the factors that control hydrate stability in order to better understand why observed dissolution rates in the field are often much slower than theoretical predictions. More on the academic research fellowship program.
• 2007 - Report to Congress on Methane Hydrates Research now available [PDF-external site]. This report from the Federal Methane Hydrate Advisory Committee provides an assessment of the Methane Hydrate Research Program as well as an assessment of the 5-year research plan of the Department of Energy.
• 2007 - The Fall 2007 edition of Fire in the Ice is now available. In this edition read about results from TOUGH+/HYDRATE simulations, methane flux from Bering Sea sediments, China's first gas hydrate expedition, a report from the Gas Hydrates Observatory workshop, and the announcement of the second award of the Methane Hydrate Research Fellowship Program. The "Spotlight on Research" features Michael Riedel of McGill University in Canada.
• 2007 - Second Award Made Under Methane Hydrate Fellowship Program   A second fellowship has been awarded under the newly inaugurated Methane Hydrates Fellowship program. Evan Solomon, currently a Ph.D candidate at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, was selected from among a field of highly-qualified applicants to pursue post-doctoral research related to the study of constraining rates of biogeochemical reactions and methane generation and their implications for fluid and gas sources, transport processes and gas hydrate formation.
• 2007 - Gas Hydrate Paper Published in the American Journal of Science The paper written by scientists at Rice University and entitled "Generalization of Gas Hydrate Distribution and Saturation in Marine Sediments by Scaling of Thermodynamic and Transpot Processes" has been published in the June, 2007 edition of the American Journal of Science. more project information
• 2007 - First Round Winner of the new Methane Hydrate Research Fellowship Program Announced   Ms. Monica Heintz, a Ph.D. student at the University of California at Santa Barbara, has received the inaugural award, which is part of a new NETL program that provides support for graduate and post-graduate scientists in fields related to the study of methane hydrates. DOE announced the award at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas on May 2.
  More on the academic research fellowship program.
  View photo of presentation at OTC
• 2007 - Grad student receives award for work on NETL-sponsored project [external site]. Ran Holtzman, a University of California Berkeley student, received an Outstanding Student Paper Award at the Fall Meeting of AGU for his work on Geomechanical Performance of Hydrate-Bearing Sediments in Offshore Environments, a project that is expected to have a significant impact on and provide substantial benefits to the offshore energy recovery industry. Project Information (DE-FC26-05NT42664)
• 2007 - Data Gathering Completed for North Slope Hydrate Well  Coring, logging and sampling operations have been successfully completed on the Mt. Elbert Prospect, an Alaska North Slope (ANS) well designed to test the potential for methane hydrates to become part of the overall ANS energy portfolio. The well tested a new method for identifying where methane hydrates might exist beneath Arctic permafrost. The cooperative R&D project between BP Exploration (Alaska) and DOE took place in the Milne Point Field near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.
• 2006 Kauai Workshop Summary Now Available [PDF-2.45MB] This report contains the summary and reccomendations from the March, 2006 Kauai workshop -"Science and Technology Issues in Methane Hydrate R&D".
• 2007 - Methane Hydrate Research Fellowship Now Available!  NETL has launched an academic research fellowship program to support qualified students in their pursuit of advanced degrees related to methane hydrate science. The 2-year fellowships will be made available to support work towards M.S. and Ph.D degrees, or in a Post-doctoral appointment. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will administer the program, which will feature a competitive stipend structure, including a $6k annual travel allowance. The fellowship information is now available on the NAS website. [External Site]
• 2007 - The Interagency Roadmap for Methane Hydrate R&D (PDF), which outlines a plan of action to fully address the goals of the Methane Hydrate Research and Development Act, is now available.
• Reservoir Simulator Code Comparison Study Now Available  NETL and the USGS are guiding a collaborative, international effort to compare methane hydrate reservoir simulators. Background information about the study, a list of participants involved, an overview of the simulators included in the study, as well as detailed information about each case study being compared is provided.
• An updated version of the Methane Hydrates Bibliography of DOE Sponsored Student Researchers & Publications & Presentations, 1999-2006 [PDF], is now available.
• 2006 - New Projects to Uncover the Potential of America's Methane Hydrate Resource Six cost-shared R&D projects will seek to unlock this huge potential source of hydrocarbon energy.
• 2006 - New Hydrate Research Effort in the Indian Ocean The scientific research drill ship `JOIDES Resolution', hired by the Indian Government to explore deep-sea gas hydrate reserves, has commenced drilling and sampling off the coast of Mumbai, in the Indian Ocean. This research effort utilizes tools developed by Department of Energy supported projects as part of the National Methane Hydrate R&D Program.
• The Spring 2005 Edition of "Fire in the Ice" is available! In this edition of Fire in the Ice: "Marine Multi-component Seismology", "Discovery of Possible Gas Hydrate Features", and "Monitoring Station Update". This edition's "Spotlight on Research" features Scott Dallimore of the Geological Survey of Canada.
  Fire in the Ice, Spring, 2005
• 2005 - The Fifth International Conference on Gas Hydrates (ICGH 5) was held in Trondheim, Norway, June 13-16, 2005. The conference covered all aspects of science and technology related to gas hydrates. Visit the ICGH website for more information
• 2005 - Announcing the Release of PetraSim Version 2.4 for TOUGH-Fx/HYDRATE
  PetraSim Version 2.4 - is an interactive preprocessor and postprocessor tool to rapidly develop models and view results for TOUGH-Fx/HYDRATE.
  More information on PetraSim including a free 30-Day trial version
• The DOE Sponsored Methane Hydrate Research Cruise in the Gulf of Mexico
  On May 21, 2005 the semi-submersible drilling vessel returned to port, completing a 35-day research voyage. During the expedition, researchers collected drilling, logging, and coring data from deep well pairs in the Keathley Canyon and Atwater Valley locations.  A special section of this website provides status reports, scientific updates, and pictures from the cruise.
  Fossil Energy techline.       Project factsheet
• 2005 - Hot Ice project reports available! Five topical reports and the final report from the Hot Ice project are now available in the National Methane Hydrate R&D Program Library. The Hot Ice project was a cost-shared effort between DOE, Maurer Technology Inc., Anadarko Petroleum Corp., and Noble Corp. to develop technology and to drill and test a dedicated hydrate well on the North Slope of Alaska.  Read More.
• The Winter 2005 edition of "Fire in the Ice" is available! In this edition of Fire in the Ice: understanding methane hydrate behavior using x-ray computed tomography, quantitative assessment of marine gas hydrates at MMS, gas hydrate production and carbon sequestration, and upcoming research cruises. This edition's "Spotlight on Research" features Frank R. Rack of Joint Oceanographic institutions, Inc.  Fire in the Ice, Winter, 2005
• 2005 - New methane hydrate funding opportunity available!Funding opportunity announcement number DE-PS26-05NT42405 - entitled "Gas Hydrate" is now available. The objective of this funding opportunity is to receive applications for cost-shared research projects that will develop new methane hydrate exploration and production tools and technologies, and that will provide a better understanding of hydrates in the natural environment.
• 2005 - The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) announce a training course in the use of the TOUGH-Fx / HYDRATE v1.0 code. The training course will be held at the site of LBNL in Berkeley, California from March 28 to April 1, 2005. It will cover a wide spectrum of hydrate-related simulation scenarios, including the development and analysis of real-life problems of interest to the participants.
  Project Factsheet
• 2004 - Fall edition of the methane hydrate newsletter
  In this edition of Fire in the Ice: a discussion of the September AAPG Hedberg Research Conference on gas hydrates, methane hydrate studies at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and an article on relic gas hydrates in Northwestern Siberia. This edition's "Spotlight on Research" features Dr. Ingo Pecher of the New Zealand Institute of Geological and Nuclear Science. Fire in the Ice, Fall, 2004
• 2004 - Extended abstracts from the AAPG Hedberg Research Conference available. Extended abstracts from the AAPG Hedberg Research Conference on gas hydrates are posted on the AAPG website .
• The Summer 2004 edition of the methane hydrate newsletter is here!
  In this edition of Fire in the Ice: Gulf of Mexico remote observatory update, hydrate decomposition studies at USGS,  and NETL's high pressure view cell.   This edition's "Spotlight on Research" features Dr. Keith Kvenvolden of the USGS.  Fire in the Ice Summer04
• 2004 - Alaska well targets gas hydrate, produces a wealth of information
  Scientists and engineers work to unravel the secrets of the potential of methane hydrate at a dedicated well at Alaska's North Slope.  Read more!