Fuel 256 (2019) 115742

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Interaction relationship analysis between heat transfer and hydrate T

decomposition for optimization exploitation
⁎ ⁎
Shu Liua,b, Yunpei Lianga,b, , Bo Lia,b, , Qingcui Wana,b, Xiao Hana,b
a
State Key Laboratory of Coal Mine Disaster Dynamics and Control, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
b
School of Resources and Safety Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Heat transfer influences hydrate decomposition. Hydrate dissociation produces water. Then, water remained in
Natural gas hydrate the hydrate sediment shows impact on heat transfer. Six runs of experiment with different exploitation methods
Heat transfer and well arrangements were conducted to study the interaction relationship between heat transfer and hydrate
Hydrate decomposition decomposition. For water production, results show that by combination method, the wellbore heating can
Water production
greatly improve the water produced outside the reactor in production stage (WPII) until the hydrate decom-
Depressurization
position ceases. While in depressurization regime, the WPII is more easily influenced by hydrate distribution and
Wellbore heating
the water produced outside the reactor in the free and mix gas stage (WPI). For heat transfer, the overall heat
transfer trend is not affected by less WPII. So the decomposition was hardly impacted. On the other hand, the heat
transfer promotes heat absorption by hydrates, which improves hydrate decomposition. Subsequently, the hy-
drate decomposition consumes heat, but it cannot prevent the rise of temperature even in depressurization. So
the heat from the surrounding environment is enough for hydrate decomposition. Then, the heat absorption by
hydrate decomposition (Qd) and the heat absorption rate (Rd) are quantitatively studied. Specially, the heat
absorption ratio (λ) is firstly defined to show the ratio of Qd to the wellbore heating consumption (Ec). It provides
a fresh attitude for optimizing exploitation according to the heat transfer. In order to save more heat and im-
prove λ, we need to utilize the heat transfer from the ambient environment and make progress in reducing
wellbore heating consumption.

1. Introduction MH decomposition is an endothermic reaction, so it is controlled by

Natural gas hydrate (methane hydrate, MH), whose major formation
component is CH4, is known to be one of the most potential energy
resources on account of the large distribution in the ocean and per-
mafrost (about 2.0 × 1016 m3) and its cleanness (decomposed only to
produce water and methane gas) [1,2]. The formation of it requires
abundant CH4 gas, high pressure and low temperature. Based on the
existence conditions, at present it is impossible to exploit MH as a kind
of solid substance. Thus, the MH exploitation should be focused on the
ways to dissociate MH in sediments and then collect the produced CH4
gas. By now, the feasible methods are pure depressurization, heat in-
jection, combination method, replacement method, and inhibitor in-
jection method, which have been adopted by some countries in the field
exploitation [3–18]. However, because of the layered distribution of
hydrate deposits in most situations and the special formation condition,
although the exploitation of MH can be achieved, it is far from ap-
proaching the efficiency and ensuring the safety.
heat transfer. The hydrate mass also shows vital effect on hydrate de-
composition. Hydrate dissociation consumes heat and produces gas and
water, which further absorbs heat. The heat transfer is thus weakened.
Then, the hydrate decomposition is impacted, so do the gas and water
production. This is a complex interaction, and the analysis of this
process contributes to the understanding of hydrate production prop-
erties. So some studies are about heat transfer and hydrate dissociation.
Zhao and Song et al. [19–21] adopted numerical simulation to study the
effect of heat transfer on MH decomposition. The results showed that
with depressurization, the sensible heat absorbed by MH decomposition
was significantly influenced by the properties of porous media and
water remained in it. And then by adding extra heat, they found that the
gas production rate was reduced by the increase of the specific heat
capacity in the sediment. But the water remained in the sediment and
the heat convection effect of water and gas showed limited influence on
hydrate recovery. Moreover, the increase of the thermal conductivity
showed a promotion effect on MH decomposition only in the later

⁎
Corresponding authors at: State Key Laboratory of Coal Mine Disaster Dynamics and Control, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China.
E-mail addresses: liangyunpei@126.com (Y. Liang), libo86@cqu.edu.cn (B. Li).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2019.115742
Received 15 May 2019; Received in revised form 21 June 2019; Accepted 29 June 2019
Available online 31 July 2019
0016-2361/ © 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
S. Liu, et al.
production period. Also using numerical simulation method, Liu et al.
[22] analyzed heat and mass transfer with different surrounding tem-
peratures and production pressures by depressurization. The results
indicated that MH decomposition was controlled by pressure driving
force and the heat conductivity showed greater effect on decomposi-
tion. However, with the increase of the temperature in surrounding
environment, the heat transfer and gas production were enhanced, and
the effect of pressure difference was weakened.
Different exploitation methods show different production effects
due to different heat transfer rules and mass changes [23]. In addition
to exploitation ways, the well arrangement plays a vital role in hydrate
exploitation as the well location and type will not only influence heat
and mass transfer and flow of gas and water but also the stability of the
hydrate layer [2,24]. Given the above situations, the production
methods of MH and the comparison of different well patterns have at-
tracted many researching focuses for finding out economic and safe
ways to realize the use of this alternative energy mode.
Depressurization is regarded as the most energy-saving method
since the MH is decomposed by absorbing the sensible heat conducted
from sediments and sea water, thus no extra energy is consumed in the
production process [3,25–31]. Li et al. [32] carried out the hydrate
exploitation by depressurization in a 3D cubic reactor, and they found
that the increasingly lower production pressure had the ability to raise
the gas production rate. Moreover, after the comparison of the water
production in the free gas production stage with that in the hydrate
decomposition stage, the absolutely more water production was seen in
the previous stage. However, due to the slow heat conduction from
surrounding environment and limited sensible heat from the sediment,
this exploitation method shows its disadvantage in recovery time [29],
the advantage of which thus appears under certain conditions. For ex-
ample, Feng et al. [30] suggested adopting this method when the scale
of the hydrate sediment was relatively large. And the experiment results
from Yang et al. [31] showed that the higher water saturation in hy-
drate deposit weakened the gas production rate. Besides, Phirani et al.
[29] did not suggest the use of this method in unconfined hydrate de-
posits that existed in the horizontal state.
Due to the insufficient heat transfer in depressurization, another
way to break the equilibrium condition of MH occurrence is to add heat
to the hydrate layer, so the heat injection is an available method for
hydrate exploitation. Li et al. [33] studied the recovery effects with hot
water injection by carrying out experiments with different hydrate sa-
turations, and the results indicated that the increase of hydrate sa-
turation had limited impact in average gas production rate and this
method was not promising for the exploitation of MH with the sa-
turation above 64.00%. Apart from this, Wang et al. [34] summarized
that the thermal stimulation was not an effective way for the hydrate
dissociation as the lowest hydrate decomposition ratio was shown from
their experiments. And some other researches [23,29,35,36] also in-
dicated that although it increased the heat transfer rate and may cost
less time in gas production than depressurization in some situations,
there was residual hydrate that was unable to be fully decomposed and
a low gas recovery rate was seen by this method.
The separated exploitation method like pure depressurization and
pure heat stimulation can only provide single decomposition driving
force for MH dissociation, and the gas production effect then will be
weakened to a large scale. Thus, many studies have got access to the
combination method. After conducting experiments to simulate gas
production by depressurization and combination method with electrical
heating, Hideki et al. [37] compared the production effects of two
methods and they thought that the use of electrical heating could im-
prove the hydrate recovery and the gas production rate. The same re-
sults were seen in the views of Li et al. [38]. Huff and puff method is
regarded to be a promising combination method in hydrate extraction
due to its special exploitation steps (i.e., injection, soaking and pro-
duction) that can make the heat diffused more sufficiently in the hy-
drate sediment and reduce energy consumption [39–41]. So, Li et al.
2
Fuel 256 (2019) 115742
[42] conducted experiments in which they changed the temperature of
the injected water and injection time to study the exploitation effects by
this method. The analysis of the results indicated that the rises of
temperature and injection time could result in more volumes of the
produced CH4 gas, but they were unable to make contribution to higher
energy efficiency. And the injection water and duration with 130 °C and
5 min respectively suggested the ideal production effect.
For the well configuration, Li et al. [43] utilized dual horizontal
wells in the upper and lower layers of the pilot-scale reactor respec-
tively for the recovery of MH. With the use of hot water injection
combined with depressurization, both the numerical simulation and
experimental results indicated this kind of well arrangement was pro-
mising for commercial exploitation as the high gas-to-water ratio and
net energy gain were achieved with it. In order to study the decom-
position behaviors of MH with multiple vertical well patterns, Wang
et al. [44] carried out experiments in the five-spot wells (5-wells) and
the dual wells (D-wells) with hot water injection. And they found that
although the longer well distance and larger water injection rate could
improve gas production, they had opposite effects on energy con-
sumption. Furthermore, one could see from the comparison of hor-
izontal well and vertical well on hydrate exploitation that the former
showed the better gas recovery performance than the later pattern in
terms of the energy ratio and heat transfer efficiency [2]. However,
almost all the researches about the influences of well patterns on hy-
drate recovery have been conducted through experiments and numer-
ical simulations because the field test is not economical and time con-
suming [2,41,45–47]. So when it comes to the field exploitation, the
well patterns should be chosen according to the MH distribution si-
tuation. For example, considering the layered distribution of MH in the
ocean environment, the distribution among the horizontal direction is
much larger than that among the longitudinal direction. In this case, if
the horizontal well is located in the hydrate layer, the length of the well
will be as long as the sediment layer, which is hard to guarantee the
integrity of the wellbore after the dissociation of MH. Therefore, the use
of vertical well shows its advantages in field exploitation due to short
length of the well.
We can see that many studies are about the effects of different
production methods, and some papers analyze the heat transfer prop-
erties in numerical simulation. Few papers have focused on the char-
acteristics of heat transfer by different exploitation ways and well ar-
rangements in experiments. More specially, conventional heat injection
is accompanied with mass injection, such as hot water or steam. Few
researchers study the heat transfer using exploitation method without
mass injection. Although the exploitation method with mass injection
shows its advantage in both heat conduction and heat convection in the
sediment, which improves the heat transfer, it has its obvious shortage
in causing a lot of energy loss when transported to the hydrate sediment
by wells. Besides, the numerical simulation can describe the hydrate
production rule but it does not consider the deposition characteristics of
the porous media. Therefore, with experiments, this paper focuses on
the study of heat transfer effects on hydrate decomposition by de-
pressurization and the combined method with in-situ wellbore heating.
Furthermore, with a larger specific heat capacity, water flow is sus-
pected to have a converse impact on heat transfer, which may in turn
influence hydrate recovery. In addition, the heat absorption by MH is
analyzed, and the heat absorption ratio (λ) is firstly defined. It is a fresh
aspect for analyzing the production effects of different exploitation
conditions.
2. Experimental system and operating procedures
Fig. 1 shows the experiment system, with which the hydrate can be
formed in the cubic reactor (withstanding pressure range: 0–25 MPa)
with the volume of 1.5 L (length × width × height:
100 × 100 × 150 mm). The water bath around the reactor can remain
in a constant temperature, and this provides for the simulation of the
S. Liu, et al. Fuel 256 (2019) 115742

Fig. 1. Schematic of the experimental system.

Fig. 2. Reactor internal structure and well design.

Table 1
The experimental system.
Parts Temperature part Gas supply Fluid supply Gas-liquid separation

Unit Water bath PID valve Gas storage tank Back pressure valve Flow pump Gas flow meter Electronic balance

Calculation range −5 to 30 °C 0–6000 psi 0–30 MPa 0–30 MPa 0.1–50 mL/min 0–5 L/min 0–2200 g
Error range ± 0.1 ± 0.1% ± 0.05 ± 1% ± 0.01 g

hydrate formation and decomposition in marine and permafrost en-
vironment. In this paper, we carry out experiments to study the hydrate
exploitation behaviors in marine sediments, which is simulated by the
quartz sand (diameter: 0.27–0.38 mm) [24,38,48,49]. When the ex-
periment starts, one can see the pressure in the reactor through the
pressure sensors located at the bottom and outside of the reactor re-
spectively. In addition, for the temperature monitoring, as shown in
Fig. 2, nine temperature sensors (T1–T9) are distributed uniformly in
the central horizontal plane of the reactor. After the formation of the
hydrate, three vertical wells (No. 1–3) with a resistance (73.5 Ω) in each
well are responsible for gas production and wellbore heating. In addi-
tion to the above parts, the experiment system is composed with other
parts including the gas supply part (i.e., a methane gas cylinder, a gas
booster pump and a high pressure gas storage tank), the fluid supply

3
S. Liu, et al. Fuel 256 (2019) 115742

part, the gas-liquid separation part and the data monitoring part. The
information on parameters of each part can be seen in Table 1, and one
can get more detailed introduction of this system from the published
papers [24,38].
For the hydrate formation, after the sand filling, the porosity of the
simulated hydrate sediment in the reactor is tested to be 44.20%.
Subsequently, the deionized water (377.85 mL) and methane gas
(3.30 mol) injection is the second step, at the end of which the pressure
in the reactor becomes to be about 22.00 MPa. The decrease of the
reactor pressure to around 8.00 MPa at the temperature of 7.8 °C after
approximately 15 days means the end of the MH formation step. At this
moment, the ratio of MH, water and gas to total pore volume is about
44.00%, 20.00% and 36.00%, respectively, which is namely the initial
saturation of MH (SH0), water (SW0) and CH4 gas (SG0). And MH sa-
turation is close to the data from drilling wells in South China Sea [49].
In this paper, we conduct six runs of experiments, which are Run
1–6 with different exploitation methods or different well arrangements.
In the runs with depressurization, Run 1 and 4 adopt central well (No.2)
for depressurizing, while Run 5 uses the side well (No.3) as production
well. On the other hand, with the combination method, the central well
is employed for gas production and wellbore heating in Run 2 and 3,
and Run 6 utilizes No.1 well for heating and No.3 well for production.
The parameters of these runs are shown in Table 2. The exploitation
pressures of these runs include 4.50 MPa and 4.00 MPa, which are
below the equilibrium pressure at the temperature of 7.8 °C. So the MH
exploitation can be divided into two stages. In the first stage, the
pressure decreases from the initial pressure of about 8.00 MPa to the
exploitation pressure of 4.50 or 4.00 MPa. And the second stage keeps
pressure constant at exploitation pressure. Thus, free gas and mixture
gas are released in the first stage (Stage I), while only the decomposed
gas is produced in the second stage (Stage II). This paper therefore
mainly studies the hydrate exploitation behaviors in the Stage II, and
the saturations of MH (SH1), liquid (SW1) and gas (SG1) at the beginning
of this stage are seen in Table 2. The calculation of these parameters
during experimental process is shown as follows [24,38,50–54]:
SH + SG + SW = 1
SH = SH1 (1 − x )
(nm1 + ρH SH 1 Vpore x / MH − nm, W − VP /22.4) vm
SG =
Vpore
NH MW ρH SH 1 x mW
SW = SW 1 + − point, and the two curves were almost symmetrical about the line
MH ρW ρW Vpore
SH, SG, SW – Hydrate, methane gas and water saturation, respec-
tively.
x – Decomposition percentage of MH.
nm1 – The amount of residual methane gas in the reactor after
hydrate formation, mol.
nm,W – The amount of methane dissolved in water, mol.
mW –The mass of the generated water, g.
Vpore – The volume of total pore, mL.
vm – Molar volume of methane gas, mL/mol.
VP – The volume of the produced methane gas at the standard si-
tuation, L.
NH – Hydration number.
MH – Hydrate molar mass, g/mol.
ρH – Hydrate density, g/mL.
MW – Molar mass of water, g/mol.
ρW – Water density, g/mL.
The remaining MH in the reactor can be calculated as:
mH = ρH SH Vpore (5)
So the decomposition ratio is calculated as:
mH
φd =
mH1 (6)
mH – mass of dissociated MH, g.
mH1 – MH mass after formation, g.
where H well and P well stand for the heating well and production well,
respectively, and heating rate of the runs with wellbore heating is 25 W;
P represents for the production pressure; tdII is the duration of the stage
II; WPI and WPII stand for the water production in the Stage I and II
respectively; VP in this situation is the total volume of the produced
methane gas at the standard situation in the stage II.
3. Results and analysis
3.1. Gas production and hydrate decomposition
(1) In the experiments, Run 1, 4 and 5 adopted depressurization, while
the wellbore heating combined depressurization method was used in
(2) Run 2, 3 and 6. Fig. 3 shows the changes of gas production (VP) and the
remaining MH in the reactor (mH). In six runs, the gas production
showed an upward trend [24], whereas the mH decreased gradually to 0
(3) with time. This indicates the complete decomposition of MH in the
reactor. Besides, the VP and mH curves in each run intersected at one
(4)
parallel to the x-axis through the intersection. More specifically, the
same changing rate was seen in mH curve as its corresponding VP curve
in separated run. For example, the hydrate mass in the reactor with
depressurization reduced slower than that with the combination
method, which indicated the promoting effect of wellbore heating for

Table 2
The experimental parameters.
Runs 1 2 3 4 5 6

SH0/% 44.80 46.31 47.20 50.70 47.18 48.74

SW0/% 19.19 17.80 18.65 14.85 18.60 17.92
SG0/% 36.01 35.89 34.15 34.45 34.22 33.34
P/MPa 4.50 4.50 4.00 4.00 4.50 4.50
H well 2 2 1
P well 2 2 2 2 3 3
tdII/min 213.18 84.90 64.22 190.67 255.05 161.13
WPI/g 0.62 12.12 34.43 0.38 9.12 7.90
SH1/% 32.80 31.00 31.10 33.00 33.48 33.99
SW1/% 29.94 28.19 27.19 29.01 27.80 29.68
SG1/% 37.26 40.81 41.71 37.99 38.82 36.33
WPII/g 7.11 31.19 25.35 7.63 8.69 22.36
VP/L 35.29 32.65 33.04 36.00 36.11 35.43
Fig. 3. Gas production and hydrate decomposition in the stage II.

4
S. Liu, et al.
Fig. 4. Water production (WPII) and hydrate decomposition ratio (φd) in the
stage II; Point A and B indicate the φd when the water production of Run 4 and
5 begins to stabilize respectively, and Point C stands for the φd when the WPII
starts to rise in Run 1.
decomposition. Furthermore, just like VP curves, mH curves of Run 1
and 5 basically coincided with each other, although Run 5 showed a
longer decomposition period due to the side well as production well. In
addition, by the same exploitation method, comparing Run 1 with 4 and
Run 2 with 3 respectively, a better decomposition effect was seen in the
runs with lower production pressure. It was because the gas released
from the reactor was all originated from MH dissociation, and no pro-
duced gas remained in the reactor. Therefore, gas production was
controlled by MH decomposition, which was closely related with the
heat transfer properties of the system. In the later section, we will
mainly focus on analyzing the key factors that influence MH decom-
position.
3.2. Water production
Since the water in the reactor is not easy to be produced outside, we
define the water originated from hydrate dissociation as Wd, and the
water produced outside the reactor as WPI and WPII (i.e., water pro-
duction in the stage I and II, respectively).
Fig. 4 illustrates the water production (solid line) and hydrate de-
composition ratio (dotted line) of six runs, in which Point A and B in-
dicated the φd when the water production of Run 4 and 5 began to
stabilize respectively, and Point C stood for the φd when the WPII started
to rise in Run 1. One could see that the water production of the runs by
depressurization was far less than those with combination method. In
addition, the accumulative WPII by depressurization was almost the
same. We could see from the numerical study of Liu et al. [22] that the
water production rose immediately once production began and then
showed a gradual growth until it tended to be stable. But the different
water production behavior was seen in the experiment.
For the runs with depressurization, the production pressure of Run 1
was 4.50 MPa, which was the same as that of Run 5 with the side well
(No. 3) for gas production. But in Run 1, the central well (No. 2) was
used as the production well, and Run 4 with 4.00 MPa adopted the
central well as well. One could see that the WPII curves of Run 4 and 5
showed the same changing trend, which increased with a large slope
within about 25.00 min before almost being stable in the later long
production period.
But the opposite changing trend was illustrated in Run 1. The WPII in
Run 1 stayed nearly unchanged for more than 1/3 of its production
duration. And after 88.90 min, it started rising gradually to about 7.11 g
at the end, although there was no significant difference in the accu-
mulative water yield among three runs with depressurization. The
reason for almost no water released from the reactor in Run 1 before
88.90 min might be the uneven distribution of MH in the reactor after
5
Fuel 256 (2019) 115742
Fig. 5. Water change in the stage I. Wd represents the water originated from
hydrate decomposition.
formation. The same result was shown in the numerical study of Wan
et al. [55], and they drew this conclusion based on the temperature
comparison between the experiment and the numerical simulation.
Fig. 5 shows the water and pressure change in the stage I. Run 1 had
little WPI in the stage I. Apart from the effect of gravity making it hard
for the water to be produced outside the reactor [2], this was the evi-
dence of the uneven distribution of the hydrate. Most of the MH for-
mation happened away from the production well, and the hydrate
around these areas was decomposed in the stage I, while few MHs
around the central well contributed to the Wd in this stage, leaving
more pores around the areas close to the boundary. So the water firstly
occupied the pores around the reactor boundary after hydrate decom-
position, and only 0.62 g water was carried out of the reactor by the
limited effect of the gas flow in the stage I, making almost all of the Wd
left in the reactor. In the stage II, MH decomposition started from the
boundary gradually to the central areas of the reactor as with de-
pressurization the MH dissociation was only triggered by the sensible
heat from the water bath [24]. As a result, there were few pores
available for the water flowing to the central well until the heat from
the water bath transferred to these areas. At this time, the MH around
the production well decomposed to produce more pores and more
amount of Wd for the release of water outside the reactor. Thus, the
water in Run 1 started to be produced after 90.42 min when the cor-
responding φd at Point C was 0.67, indicating that the hydrate de-
composition interface was close to the central well.
The same situation was seen in Run 4 that the WPI was only 0.38 g,
but it increased once the stage II started. From Fig. 5, we could see that
Run 4 had the most Wd during the stage I. The little WPII was caused by
the same reason as that in Run 1, which was that the formation of MH
might be uneven, and many MHs were formed in the areas away from
the central well. But we could see from Run 1 and Run 4 in Figs. 3 and 4
that this uneven distribution of hydrates that had an effect on water
production did not affect hydrate decomposition. However, as shown in
Table 2, a high SH0 was seen in Run 4. In addition, the production
pressure of Run 4 (4.00 MPa) was the lowest among other runs with
4.50 MPa. The larger pressure driving force and higher SH0 in the stage I
indicated more hydrate was decomposed to form more Wd in the re-
actor. Yet, although the hydrate decomposition might firstly happen
away from the central well causing less WPI in the stage I, due to the
large hydrate decomposition areas with a lower P, more pores around
the central well was filled with more Wd in Run 4 than that in Run 1 and
the hydrate decomposition had developed to central spaces. Therefore,
when the stage II began, the water was produced outside the reactor in
Run 4.
For Run 1 and 5, it could be seen from Fig. 4 that the φd curves of
S. Liu, et al.
Run 1 and 5 were almost the same due to the same pressure driving
force, but they had opposite WPII changing rules. In Run 5, the reason
why WPII started to rise immediately when the stage II began was that
the side well was adopted as the production well. And the hydrate near
the boundary of the reactor was firstly dissociated by depressurization,
making the water released easily from the side well. Moreover, after
27.03 min, the WPII remained almost stable in Run 5, but the φd at Point
B was only 0.32. While in Run 1, the φd at Point C corresponding to the
rising point of WPII was 0.67. So, the same pressure driving force re-
sulted in the identical hydrate decomposition rule, but the hydrate re-
covery was hardly affected by the different location of the well with
depressurization. This was because the heat transfer rule in the two
locations of production well was the same. In addition, the hydrate
decomposition rate showed no obvious influence on the growth of WPII,
but WPII was influenced by the position of the production well and
hydrate distribution. Hence in the vertical well system, the effect of
gravity on WPII overwhelmed the carrying effect of gas flow, as the role
of pressure difference in carrying water was limited with depressur-
ization. Besides, the WPII could be controlled by arranging the location
of the production well according to the hydrate distribution.
However, the WPII curves of Run 4 (4.00 MPa) with the central well
and Run 5 (4.50 MPa) with the side well showed the same changing
trend. But the φd of the former was larger than the later, so did the
rising rate of φd. The WPII of the two remained stable after 29.03 min,
and the corresponding φd of the Run 4 at Point A was 0.59, which was
nearly twice that of Run 5 at Point B (0.32). We could see that the lower
P led to the faster hydrate decomposition, as the lower pressure cor-
responded to a lower equilibrium temperature, which resulted in a
larger temperature gradient and accelerated the heat transfer rate from
the boundary. But it had almost no effect on WPII when the water was
produced once the stage II began in both runs. The decrease of mH, one
of the reasons for the reduction of Wd and gas production rate [2], did
not impact WPII. So, the changing rule of WPII was mainly influenced by
the location of the production well and also the hydrate distribution,
but the above two aspects as well as the P showed no obvious effect on
the final cumulative water yield. When the depressurization was em-
ployed in the exploitation of the hydrate with the same SH0, SW0 and
SG0, the accumulative water production was almost the same.
However, different changing trends in WPII were showed in Run 2, 3
and 6. The WPII curves in these runs with combination method in-
creased sharply with high production rates once the stage II began, and
the growth trend continued until they became stable. The accumulative
WPII of these runs was far more than the runs with depressurization. In
addition, since the production duration of Run 6 was longer than the
other two with the combination method, a longer stable water pro-
duction period was seen in this run. But when the WPII of the three runs
started to be stable, most of the hydrates were dissociated, especially
the φd in Run 2 and 3 approached to be 1.0. So, the fast hydrate de-
composition contributed to strengthening the flow of gas and water
when the hydrate was enough to provide high mass transfer rate.
The water production rate of Run 3 was smaller than that of Run 2
before 10.18 min, after which the WPII curves of them showed the same
changing trend although the later curve was higher than that of the
former during the whole production period, so did the final accumu-
lative WPII. As shown in Fig. 5, the slower rising rate of WPII in Run 3 at
the beginning of the stage II might be caused by the smaller Wd with
larger WPI in the stage I, leaving smaller water in the reactor at the
beginning of the stage II. However, the φd curves of the two runs
showed the opposite changing trend, that is, the φd of Run 3 kept larger
than that of Run 2 during the stage II. This was because with the same
heat injection rate of 25 W by wellbore, the lower P in Run 3 resulted in
the higher φd than that in Run 2 as higher decomposition driving force
was adopted by a higher heat transfer rate in Run 3. And it led to the
shorter hydrate recovery duration in Run 3. It could be seen with the
same heating injection rate, although the bigger driving force provided
by the lower exploitation pressure made contribution to the faster
6
Fuel 256 (2019) 115742
decomposition rate, excepted for being influenced by the water re-
mained in the reactor, the changing rule of WPII was almost unaffected
by different exploitation pressures. With almost the same SH0, SW0 and
SG0, the less accumulative WPII in Run 3 than that in Run 2 was caused
by the more WPI in the former than the later.
Although the heating injection rate and P of Run 6 were the same as
those of Run 2, before 9.18 min the WPII of the former with the side well
as production well was higher than that of the later with the central
well, and also higher than that of Run 3 with a larger pressure driving
force before 20.68 min. As shown in Fig. 5, the reason for the higher
water production rate of Run 6 at the beginning of the stage II was that
more water was remained in the reactor during the stage I. However,
with the heat originated from wellbore heating of the side well trans-
ferred to the water bath, the heating driving force was weakened, and
the water production rate in Run 6 decreased. In addition, the φd of Run
6 was the lowest with the smallest hydrate decomposition rate and
longest production duration among the runs by combination method.
The higher pressure driving force had the ability to enhance the hydrate
decomposition and the decrease of mH reduced the hydrate recovery
rate. But the heating driving force showed a dominating effect on the
WPII. When the wellbore heating had the ability to offer excessive heat
to maintain the fast hydrate decomposition, the water could be pro-
duced with a high rate until the hydrate within the decomposition in-
terface was ran out. Besides, the amount of the water in the hydrate
sediment at the end of the stage I would influence the WPII at the be-
ginning of the stage II. In all, the water was released out of the vertical
well by the effect of driving force, and by combination method with
strong gas and water flow, the fluid flowing effect was able to conquer
the gravity influence to some extent due to large heating driving force.
However, in depressurization, the pressure driving force was too small
to produce a large amount of WPII, resulting in less WPII than that with
combination method.
Apart from these, we could see the φd curve of Run 4 by de-
pressurization coincided with that of Run 2 and 6 by combination
method before 14.35 min. Then the φd of Run 2 exceeded that of Run 4
and 6 and remained this advantage until the end of the stage II.
Although the φd of Run 4 was higher than that of Run 6 during
14.35–53.38 min, the later overtook the former after 53.38 min. At this
time, the φd and WPII of Run 4 was about 0.75 and 7.00 g, respectively.
Run 4 adopted depressurization while the combination method was
employed in Run 6. One could see from Run 1 and 5 that the position of
the depressurization well showed little impact on hydrate decomposi-
tion and gas production. It suggested that we could adopt depressur-
ization with a lower production pressure at the beginning of the ex-
ploitation. This was because the same decomposition effect was seen
comparing the run of lower WPII with that of the combination method,
especially when the side well was used as the heating well. The heating
could be added when the pressure driving force could not maintain a
high decomposition rate. This would avoid energy waste in hydrate
exploitation and improve net energy gain.
From Figs. 4 and 5, one could see that the heating driving force
showed a positive impact on the water production, but the water pro-
duction was insensitive to the production pressure difference. Besides,
less mH at the end of stage I and more hydrate distributed far away from
the production well would delay WPII and decrease the water produc-
tion rate in the early duration of stage II. When the hydrate exploitation
is carried out in the field, since the use of depressurization leads to less
WPII and has the same production effect in a lower pressure compared
with combination method during the early period, one can think about
adding wellbore heating after the pressure driving force cannot main-
tain a high decomposition rate. This will help to achieve the high en-
ergy recovery, and reduce the amount of WPII. In the stage I, it is op-
timal for the exploitation if less water was left in the reactor. This is
because the Wd will occupy the pores first before they are released
outside, making less WPII in the stage II. However, WPI is not impacted
by the pressure difference. And in the stage II, the pressure driving force
S. Liu, et al.
Fig. 6. Average temperature changes of six runs in the reactor. Point A and B in
Run 2 and 3 respectively stand for the starting point of which the temperature
accelerates to rise, and Point C (Run 6) indicates the starting point of which the
rise of the temperature decreases; Point a, b and c in Run 1, 4 and 5 respectively
represent the starting point of which temperature accelerates to increase; Tw
stands for the temperature of the water bath.
also shows little influence on it, while the heat driving force has the
ability to greatly improve the WPII, in spite that the distribution of
hydrate and mH shows an influence on it. On the other hand, the use of
side wells as production and heating well is not a promising method for
improving hydrate recovery and reducing WPII. In all, the relatively less
water is produced in the vertical well system due to the effect of gravity
[2]. As a result, the pressure driving force is not that enough to enhance
the flow of gas and water and conquer the effect of gravity, making the
effect of hydrate and water distribution in the reactor on water pro-
duction more obvious in depressurization. But the heating can con-
tribute to the fast decomposition and gas production, enforcing the flow
of water and gas out of the reactor. For understanding the production
behavior clearly, the further analysis of heat transfer is needed.
3.3. Heat transfer
Fig. 6 illustrates the average temperature changes of Run 1–6 in the
reactor, and the initial temperatures of them were below 7.8 °C as the
hydrate absorbed the sensible heat for decomposition from the sedi-
ment in the stage I. They all showed an increasing trend with time. This
indicated the dominating effect of heat transfer on the hydrate de-
composition. In the runs with depressurization, the temperatures in-
creased gradually with continuous decreasing rising rate before Point a,
b and c in Run 1, 4 and 5 respectively, after which the temperatures of
them showed sudden increases. Fig. 7 shows the temperature dis-
tribution of the central plane in the reactor by depressurization. The
heat from the water bath transferred gradually from the reactor
boundary to the central areas, making the hydrate located around the
boundary firstly dissociated, and the decomposition interface moved
gradually to the central well. Specially, since the heat from the water
bath could be transferred to the reactor from two boundaries at the
corner of the reactor, the hydrate around these corners was confronted
with larger heat transferring interface and could absorb more heat than
the hydrate around the center of the boundary in the same time. Thus,
the temperature rise around the boundary center was behind that of the
corner. In addition, at the beginning of the stage II, the heat transfer
effect overpowered hydrate decomposition, leading to the rise of the
temperature. However, with the increase of the decomposition interface
as shown in Fig. 7, the heat transfer resistance rose due to the in-
creasing heat transfer distance and the increasingly more heat absorbed
by hydrate dissociation, as well as the sediment sand. This weakened
the heat transfer effect, leading to the decrease of the temperature
7
Fuel 256 (2019) 115742
rising rate. Yet, with the reduction of mH in the reactor, the heat
transferred from the water bath was abundant. These heat was ab-
sorbed by the sediment for the increase of the temperature in the re-
actor. So the temperature rising rates of Run 1, 4 and 5 showed sudden
increases after Point a, b and c. This could also be seen from the Point a,
b and c in Fig. 7 that the temperatures in the reactor started to rise to
the Tw of 7.8 °C at the corner areas. This meant the hydrate decom-
position was approaching to an end. Besides, one could see from the
Fig. 7(a) that the heat transfer dominated more than half of the hydrate
sediment in Run 1 at t = 100.80 min, which confirmed that the hydrate
decomposition interface was close to the central well, resulting in the
beginning of water production according to Fig. 4. Furthermore, the
analysis of WPII and φd in Fig. 4 suggested that it could reduce the WPII
and heat consumption by adding heating when the depressurization
could not ensure a high φd.
The lowest initial temperature was seen in Run 4 as the production
pressure of it was 4.00 MPa. Run 4 had a higher initial saturation, and a
lower pressure meant a larger pressure driving force in the stage I,
making more hydrate decomposed than the other two runs with
4.50 MPa. But the temperature of it was the first to accelerate at Point b
(157.63 min) and exceeded that of Run 1 and 5 at 168.98 min and
157.68 min respectively. It could be observed that the heat transfer in
Run 4 was faster than that of Run 1 and 5 and the hydrate decom-
position was faster in it than the other two. So the lower production
pressure resulted in a faster heat transfer rate as the corresponding
equilibrium temperature was lower. Furthermore, we could see from
Fig. 6 that the temperatures of Run 1 and 5 showed the same increasing
trend with the same exploitation pressure, indicating the same heat
transfer rate. The reason for the delay of Point c to Point a and then the
longer production period was that Run 5 with the side well as the
production well had a slightly higher SH and a longer gas and water
flowing distance than that in Run 1 with central well [24].
As shown in Fig. 7(a) and (c), the temperature distributions at the
midpoint of Run 1 and 5 almost corresponded with each other. The
Point a and c of them also corresponded with each other. The tem-
perature gradient decreased from the boundary to the center areas.
When using depressurization, the hydrate decomposition of Run 1 and
5 was only promoted by the heat from the water bath. So with the same
pressure driving force and initial temperature, they showed the iden-
tical heat transfer rule. In addition, as discussed in Figs. 3 and 4, Run 1
and 5 showed the same decomposition rule. So with the same heat
transfer and mass transfer rate, the hydrate decomposition interface
swept across the same area per minute in the two runs. This was also
the evidence that the hydrate decomposition was controlled by the heat
transfer and hydrate mass transfer [14]. As a result, the same gas
production rule of them was seen in Fig. 3. But the temperature rises of
Run 5 in the areas near (x = 0 m, y = 0 m) and (x = 0.04 m,
y = 0.04 m) were slower than those in the same positions of Run 1. This
was because the No.3 well was used as the production well, the water
flowing distance was further than that of Run 1. So the water stayed in
the reactor for a longer period of time, absorbing more heat. This in-
fluenced the heat transfer in these areas. Besides, there might be more
hydrate around the No.1 well and the area of (x = 0.04 m, y = 0.04 m)
in Run 5, reducing the heat transfer rate in these small areas. From the
above analysis, we could see that the water production and uneven
distribution of hydrate reduced heat and mass transfer to some extent.
Then the heat and mass transfer rate was reduced in Run 5. This
weakened the hydrate decomposition. Conversely, the amount of the
decomposed water was decreased. So the heat transfer became stronger
again. Although this interaction process prolonged hydrate exploitation
duration in Run 5, the overall decomposition trend was unaffected.
For the runs by depressurization combined with wellbore heating,
one could see from Fig. 6 that the temperature rises were far faster than
those by depressurization, and the final temperatures were significantly
higher than the depressurization runs. This indicated that the wellbore
heating could greatly improve the heat transfer. The lowest initial
S. Liu, et al. Fuel 256 (2019) 115742

Fig. 7. Temperature distribution of the central plane in the reactor by depressurization; (a), (b) and (c) represent the temperature distribution in Run 1, 4 and 5
respectively.

temperature was seen in Run 3, as it adopted 4.00 MPa for gas pro- respectively. With the same heating power, the lower production
duction. But the temperature of it increased sharply during the stage II pressure resulted in a faster heat transfer rate and also a larger hydrate
and exceeded that of Run 6 and 2 at 32.20 min and 34.87 min, decomposition rate, as shown in Fig. 4. In addition, Run 2 and 6

8
S. Liu, et al.
employed the same heating power and production pressure. The tem-
perature rose with almost the same trend during 0–30.53 min, during
which there were several temperature fluctuations. This made the
temperature of Run 6 lower than that of Run 2. However, after Point C,
the temperature of Run 6 was rising with a lower rate, while that of Run
2 continued increasing even with a higher rate after Point A. It made
the temperature of the former increasingly lower than that of the later.
This was because when the side well was adopted for heating in Run 6,
the heat originated from the side well would continuously transfer to
the water bath with a relatively lower temperature, leading to a large
amount of heat loss.
Before Point A and B, although the temperatures of Run 2 and 3
increased, the heat transfer effect was not large enough to make the
temperature in the reactor rise at an increasingly higher rate. This was
because the hydrate decomposition interface was increasing and the
hydrate needed a lot of heat for decomposition, which weakened the
heat transfer to some extent. However, this weakening effect of heat
transfer showed little influence on hydrate decomposition, as shown in
Figs. 3 and 4. The temperature of Run 2 and 3 accelerated to rise after
Point A and B respectively. It showed that the effect of heating from the
heating well overwhelmed the effect of heat absorption by hydrate
decomposition. Fig. 8 illustrated temperature distribution in the reactor
by combination method. So this could also be observed from Fig. 8(a)
and (b) that the heat had transferred to most areas of the reactor. At
t = 30.53 min and t = 28.87 min in Run 2 and 3 respectively, one could
see from Fig. 4 that the φd of Run 2 and 3 was about 0.70 and 0.85
respectively. So the hydrate mass transfer showed a more serious im-
pact on heat transfer, that is, the reduction of hydrate mass that wea-
kened the heat absorption for hydrate decomposition enhanced the heat
transfer. At this time, the cease of heating was suggested to avoid en-
ergy waste at this situation. During the end period of Run 2 and 3, the
temperature rising rates of them decreased. It was due to that the heat
had transferred to the boundary, and the water bath started to absorb
this heat, slowing down the increase of the temperature. This meant
that the exploitation was to be end. The final temperatures of the two
runs approached to be the same, indicating the heat exchange equili-
brium between internal reactor and external water bath. It showed us
that the larger pressure difference had the ability to improve the heat
transfer rate, but the final temperature of the system was determined by
the wellbore heating driving force.
In Run 6, there were several temperature fluctuations within
35.20 min. As shown in Fig. 4, each temperature fluctuation accom-
panied with the fluctuation of water production in Run 6. The water
production was controlled by hydrate decomposition. When the water
production rate decreased while the hydrate decomposition continued,
the decomposed water remained in the reactor increased. These water
with a larger specific heat capacity than the hydrate deposit absorbed
the heat which should have been absorbed by the hydrate deposits for
the increase of the temperature. So with a large amount of the Wd re-
mained in the reactor by combination method, it showed some hin-
drance to heat transfer. But the impact on the overall heat transfer was
limited. Thus, as shown in Figs. 3 and 4, the hydrate decomposition in
Run 6 was hardly influenced by water production, as well as the gas
production of it. In all, by combination method, the larger heat transfer
rate resulted in the faster hydrate decomposition. Although the water
production showed some influence on heat transfer, the overall hydrate
decomposition was not impacted. Therefore, the gas production was
determined by hydrate decomposition in combination method.
For the comparison of the heat transfer between depressurization
and the combination method, we could see from Figs. 7 and 8 that apart
from the heat transfer rate, the heat transfer direction of the former
method differed from the later. By depressurization, no matter where
the production well was, the latent heat used for hydrate decomposition
was transferred from the boundary to the center. While with combi-
nation method, the dominating heat was diffused from the heating well
in the central area or around the boundary center, and these were
9
Fuel 256 (2019) 115742
consistent with the former research results [34,38,56]. Thus, the di-
rection of the driving force was in accordance with that of the flow of
gas and water in depressurization. The direction of gas and water flow
was the same with the heat transfer in Run 6, although the heating well
was located in the boundary center. But in Run 2 and 3, the direction of
the heat transfer was opposite to the gas and water flow. This might
hinder the flow of gas and water. In addition, the heat from wellbore
heating dominated the hydrate decomposition soon after the beginning
of the heating. But in Run 6, from Fig. 8(c) of t = 35.20 min, the hy-
drate around the two corners of the boundary (x = 0.04 m) absorbed
heat from water bath for decomposition. From Figs. 6–8(a) and (b), the
final temperature of runs by depressurization tended to be the same
level, as well as that by combination method. It showed us that with the
same heating driving force, the heat exchange between the reactor and
the water bath reached the same equilibrium, although the final tem-
perature of the runs by depressurization is much lower than that of the
later.
In general, the same production pressure resulted in almost the
same initial temperature, and the heat transfer from the water bath in
the stage I had limited effect on the initial temperature. The smaller
initial temperature caused by the lower production pressure in the stage
II contributed to the faster heat transfer rate. Besides, the location of the
production well had little influence on the heat transfer in depressur-
ization, while the heat transfer was obviously impacted by the ar-
rangement of the heating well in combination method. The combina-
tion method with wellbore heating wasted more heat for greatly
increasing the temperature of the hydrate sediment. We can see that
heat transfer improves hydrate decomposition. Then, hydrate decom-
position consumes heat, but it cannot prevent the rise of temperature
even in depressurization. This is because hydrate decomposition is an
endothermic reaction, which absorbs heat. The heat transfer from
boundaries is the dominating factor for hydrate decomposition in de-
pressurization. So even with depressurization, the method without
extra heat injection, part of the heat transferred from the boundaries
will have to be absorbed by the sediment for increasing its temperature.
Then a temperature gradient is maintained for continuous heat transfer
from the boundary to the inner hydrate deposit. Actually, the heat from
the surrounding environment is enough for hydrate decomposition.
Therefore, this is not enough to assess the feasibility of hydrate ex-
ploitation methods, and we need to consider the heat absorption and
energy consumption to find out the most valuable production way.
3.4. Heat absorption analysis
3.4.1. Heat absorption characteristics
In this paper, Qd (KJ) is the heat consumed by MH decomposition,
and it is calculated as Qd = ΔH ·mH , where ΔH = 62.8 KJ/mol is the
dissociation heat of MH [57]. The Rd (KJ/min) is used to show the heat
dQ
absorption rate, which is thus defined as Rd = dtd . λ is the heat ab-
sorption ratio, and it is adopted to show the proportion of heat ab-
sorption by MH decomposition to the energy added for the decom-
Q
position. So we define it as λ = Ed . But since no extra heat is provided in
c
depressurization, this paper compared the λ in Run 2, 3 and 6 by
combination method.
Fig. 9 illustrates the heat absorption characteristics by MH decom-
position, and the parameters are shown in Table 2. The heat absorption
used for hydrate dissociation showed an increasing trend in six runs,
and this is the evidence of endothermic reaction of MH dissociation.
The slightly smaller accumulative Qd in Run 2 and 3 was due to the
slightly lower SH1 of them. In Fig. 9(b), the Rd curves showed decrease
trends approaching to 0 during the exploitation except Run 6. It in-
creased to its peak at 3.88 KJ/min at start and then decreased. This
verified the analysis from Fig. 8(c) that at the beginning of the pro-
duction before the heating diffused fully, the hydrate could absorb heat
from heating well and water bath as the Run 6 adopted No.1 and 3 well
S. Liu, et al.
Fig. 8. Temperature distribution of the central plane in the reactor by combination method; (a)–(c) represent the temperature distribution in Run 2, 3 and 6
respectively.
as heating well and production well respectively. Thus the Rd of Run 6
was larger than that of Run 2 with the same heating rate. However,
with the heat transferred to the water bath and due to the larger heat
loss, the Rd of Run 6 fell behind that of Run 2. The exploitation of Run 6
tended to be ended after 53.22 min. So the reduction of mH led to the
stop of heat absorption by MH. From Fig. 9, we could see the same heat
10
Fuel 256 (2019) 115742
absorption rule and rate between Run 1 and 5. So the same heat and
mass transfer rules resulted in the identical heat absorption rule. Thus,
the hydrate decomposition and gas production of them were nearly the
same. This could also be seen from the comparison of the runs by de-
pressurization with combination method that the faster heat absorption
in combination method was caused by the better heat and mass
S. Liu, et al.
Fig. 9. Heat absorption characteristics of MH decomposition. (a) Heat absorp-
tion by MH decomposition; (b) Heat absorption rate.
transfer. And this greatly shortened the heat absorption duration.
On the other hand, the lower P had the ability to improve heat
absorption as shown from the comparison of Run 1 with 4 and Run 2
with 3, respectively. This verified that the lower P could enhance the
heat and mass transfer rates due to the larger pressure driving force.
Then the gas production was improved. However, in Fig. 9(b), with a
larger P, the Rd of Run 1 was higher than that of Run 4 during the latter
period of production. The same situation was seen in Run 2 with a
larger P and Run 3 with a lower P. When the mH was approaching to be
ran out as shown in Figs. 3 and 4, the heat was mainly absorbed by
sediment sand rather than hydrate decomposition. During these time,
we can consider the cease of wellbore heating. Conversely, one could
see from the Figs. 7 and 8, if the heating was added later, the hydrate
could dissociate from two directions, one of which started from the
boundary by absorbing heat from water bath in the early depressur-
ization period. Another direction was from the central heating well
after the heating was added when the depressurization driving force
cannot ensure the fast hydrate decomposition. This was beneficial for
shortening the heat transfer distance and saving energy.
3.4.2. Heat absorption ratio
From the above analysis, one could see the obvious advantage of
depressurization in λ, as it could be considered as no extra heat injec-
tion. Fig. 10 illustrates the heat absorption ratio of the runs with
combination method. It provides us another way (the analysis of heat
utilization) to compare the exploitation effects in different exploitation
conditions. Run 3 with the lowest P of 4.00 MPa showed the shortest
production duration and the largest λ (above 1.00). So it was the only
11
Fuel 256 (2019) 115742
Fig. 10. Heat absorption ratio of runs with combination method. λ = 1.0 in-
dicates the balance of heat absorption by MH decomposition and heat con-
sumption by wellbore heating; Q = 25 W.
run that the extra heat injection was not excessive. However, λ > 1.00
could be regarded reasonable considering that the heat from wellbore
heating was absorbed for MH decomposition. As discussed in Fig. 6, the
sediment absorbed excessive heat making the temperature of it rise
above the surrounding water bath. This was because the pressure dif-
ference also provided decomposition driving force, and MH could also
absorb the heat from the water bath with a higher temperature for
decomposition. Furthermore, under the same heat injection rate, Run 2
with a larger P (4.50 MPa) showed obviously less λ than that of Run 3
(4.00 MPa) during nearly the entire period of production. In addition,
before 16.68 min, there was a period during which the λ of Run 6 was
higher than that of Run 2. As shown in Fig. 9(b), the Rd of Run 6 was
larger than that of Run 2. So with a larger pressure driving force in Run
3, the hydrate decomposition could be enhanced by absorbing heat
more quickly from the heating well and the water bath. Besides, before
a large amount of heat was wasted in Run 6, the λ could be improved by
hydrate absorbing heat from water bath as shown in Fig. 8(c). With a
large amount of heat loss, the λ of Run 6 was the lowest, only 0.45 in
the end. Thus, in order to save more energy and improve λ, we needed
to utilize the heat transfer from the ambient environment and make
progress in reducing wellbore heating consumption by considering
lowering heating rate and P.
4. Conclusion and discussion
In vertical well system, the effect of gravity is so obvious that the
water production is limited, especially when depressurization is
adopted for exploitation. This is because the pressure difference is too
weak to enforce the flow of gas and water, and the effects of hydrate
distribution and the remaining water in the reactor on water production
thus become apparent. In addition, due to the high heat and mass
transfer enhanced by wellbore heating, the water production is much
larger with combination method than that with depressurization. In the
field exploitation, we can employ depressurization with a lower pro-
duction pressure in the early production stage for the same decom-
position rate with less water production and energy consumption
compared with combination method.
For the analysis of heat transfer, a lower production pressure results
in a lower initial temperature in the stage II, which can lead to a faster
heat transfer rate. The temperature change during the production was a
process of interaction between heat transfer and hydrate dissociation,
although the effect of the heat transfer dominates the hydrate decom-
position. We can also see that the heat transfer starts from the boundary
to the central areas in depressurization, while with combination
method, heat diffuses from the heating well. Besides, the small amount
S. Liu, et al.
of WPII causes a lot of Wd to remain in the reactor, which leads to a
certain hindrance to heat transfer. But the overall heat transfer rule is
hardly impacted.
Finally, the heat absorption by MH decomposition is controlled by
the heat and mass transfer. The same heat and mass transfer result in
the identical hydrate decomposition and then the same VP and Wd rule.
The depressurization shows great advantage in λ, but the Qd and Rd of it
are too low to result in the fast heat transfer from surrounding en-
vironment. The fast heat and mass transfer is seen in combination
method, which can greatly reduce heat absorption duration. This is
beneficial for the energy recovery, but the wellbore heating is so
abundant that a lot of heat from it is absorbed by the hydrate sediment
and water bath, causing heat waste. In order to save more energy and
improve λ, we need to utilize the heat transfer from the ambient en-
vironment and make progress in reducing wellbore heating consump-
tion by considering lowing heating rate and P. Thus, combination
method with a lower production pressure is economical for commercial
exploitation. Although the large λ is once obtained during the start of
production with separated side wells for exploitation, due to the heat
loss weakening the heat transfer, it shows less advantages in heat ab-
sorption than center well for production. So it is not applicable to be
used in MH exploitation.
Due to the obvious advantage of combination method in shortening
production duration, we need to conduct other experiments with dif-
ferent wellbore heating injection rates for finding out the way to obtain
the higher λ. Besides, considering the increasingly more heat wastes
and smaller hydrate remained in the reactor with time, one can con-
sider the end of heating when the hydrate decomposition becomes re-
latively slow. And in the later period, the only use of depressurization
can be taken into account. Considering the water production rule and
heat transfer from two directions in the reactor, it is better to adopt
depressurization in the early production period and then adding well-
bore heating. This paper analyzes the heat utilized by hydrate decom-
position for the judgment of the production effects with different ex-
ploitation conditions. The later research can focus on the optimization
of the exploitation method according to the quantitative analysis of
heat utilized by hydrate decomposition and wasted by increasing the
temperature of sediments and transferring to the water bath. This
provides another way to find out the feasible heating rate and pro-
duction pressure, and the moment of adding or stopping heating.
Acknowledgments
This work is financially supported by the National Science and
Technology Major Project of China (Grant No. 2016ZX05043005), the
National Natural Science Foundation of China (51876017, 51674050
and 51506016), and the State Key Research Development Program of
China (Grant No. 2016YFC0801404), which are gratefully acknowl-
edged.
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