ROCKMAN wrote:vt - I take it you didn't actually read the article. They aren't producing any NG let alone 16,000 meters per day. They tested at a RATE OF 16,000 mpd but did not specify how long they tested. Might have only been a hour or two. They are guessing at least 8 more years before they actually have a producible well:
"It is the first time that production rates actually seem promising," he says. "But it's thought that only by 2025 at the earliest we might be able to look at realistic commercial options." An average of 16,000 cubic meters of gas with high purity have been extracted per day in the Shenhu area of the South China Sea, according to Chinese media."
And no hint at what such a hypothetical well would cost not the $billions to lay the pipelines out there to transport it to the bank. As I said: no indication at all that the process could come close the competing with LNG even if it increased to its record high that was about 3X the current price.
IOW we're still years away from reaching the fantasy level of expectations. LOL.
No Rock the article I read was very specific and said they extracted 16,000 cm per day for several days not just a short test rate. Of course that might be an error in reporting or deliberate government propaganda.
Also the Chinese among others, RD Shell for one, are working on liquidizing NG into LNG at sea so they would not be building pipelines out to the field. Apparently some of these floating processing projects have been cut or put on hold by the increased production of fracked gas in the US so it would not take too much of a change in supply or demand to make them viable again.
I wonder about the process they are using to separate the water from the gas. Bringing it up to the surface and letting it depressurize and warm up works of course but I wonder if they could get it to LNG cheaper by taking advantage of the 1775 psi bottom pressure the 4000 ft depth of ocean has at that depth.
And 2025 is not that far away so a development plan that brings it online in 2025 might well line up with world supply and demand realities then.
The Chinese must think it has possibilities or they wouldn't have invested as much money as they have.