Japan, Canada to Start Test-Production of Frozen Natural Gas (Shigeru Sato)

  Japan's government said it will start test production of frozen natural gas in Canada's permafrost area as part of Japan's 16-year project to siphon gas from methane hydrate, a form of the fuel known as gas crystals.

  Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's government said it will start test production of frozen natural gas in Canada's permafrost area as part of Japan's 16-year project to siphon gas from methane hydrate, a form of the fuel known as gas crystals.

  State-run Japan Oil, Gas, and Metals Corp. and Canada's natural resources ministry on Feb. 23 drilled a test well inside the Arctic Circle, and plan in March to start extracting gas from the hydrates, an ice-like form of methane trapped in oxygen and hydrogen, the state-controlled company said in a statement.

  Japan is accelerating efforts to develop technologies to extract gas from the methane hydrate deposits lying under the Pacific Ocean and Sea of Japan seabed, to break the country's dependence on Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia for its oil and gas supply.

  In the test production with the Canadian government, the Japanese state-run company, known as JOGMEC, plans to trial a so- called depressurizing method, under which the icy gas crystals are returned to gas form inside a drilled hole, the company said in its statement today.

  Methane hydrate has to be depressurized or heated to be turned into gaseous form.

LINK: Bloomberg