Sediment Instability Caused by Gas Production from Hydrate-bearing Sediment in Northern South China Sea by Horizontal Wellbore: Evolution and Mechanism

Effective production of natural gas from hydrate-bearing sediments by using various strategies (such as depressurization) is an important way to solve the current global energy crisis. Nevertheless, hydrate dissociation during gas production can weaken sediment strength, influencing reservoir stability and subsequent gas production. Previous studies focused mainly on the analysis of production behavior of natural gas from hydrates, but few on reservoir stability. In this work, evolution of gas production, reservoir characteristics and sediment deformation were analyzed thoroughly with ABAQUS platform. Investigation on gas production revealed that the average production rate was 5.57 × 10 4 m 3 /day, indicating that development strategies mentioned herein can achieve the goal of commercial development of gas hydrates. Although the changes of hydrate saturation and effective stress both affected the characteristics of hydrate reservoir throughout hydrate development operation, hydrate saturation was the main influencing factor. The contour of the distribution nephogram of reservoir characteristics basically coincided with that of the hydrate saturation distribution nephogram. Meanwhile, the yield area around wellbore appearing in the early stage of development operation corresponded to the area prone to sand production. However, the yield area near the seabed appearing in the late stage of development operation corresponded to the area prone to submarine landslide. Finally, investigation on sediment deformation indicated, except for the dissociation area, which experienced significant compaction, the sediments in other areas in the confined space experienced continuous subsidence. This study is expected to lay a theoretical foundation for proposing engineering measures to avoid uncontrollable geological disasters in the process of hydrate development.