Emerging Research, Technologies and The Industry

Our rapidly advancing knowledge of gas hydrate systems is driven by a broad spectrum of energy industry interests, environmental concerns and fundamental research.

Industrially, the commercial development of the immense hydrate deposits is becoming a reality with the recent JOGMEC tests in the Japan Nankai Trough and with ConocoPhilips on the US North Slope. Flow assurance issues related to hydrates continue to present important challenges. The dynamics of present and palaeo-hydrates, including marine and terrestrial and permafrost gas hydrates, carry environmental consequences that can catastrophically change the planet. These applied areas depend heavily on the fundamental research to understand the formation and occurrence of hydrates. New advances of these different, yet synergistic, perspectives will be intensely discussed during the 3rd Gordon Research Conference on Natural Gas Hydrates, which brings together industry government and academic investigators in hydrate activities, from all career stages.

The 5-day retreat-style meeting format has a limited number of invited speakers with longer-format, cutting-edge presentations, with no concurrent sessions and extended discussion periods. In concert, there are extensive, scheduled poster sessions, which everyone attends. There will be presentations on field, experimental, and modeling studies that enhance our understanding of gas hydrates and their interaction with sediments, pore fluids, and the biosphere on pore space to planetary spatial and temporal scales. These, together with the many informal discussions and activities, are the hallmarks of our Gordon Research Conference.

Participants include geoscientists, microbiologists, physicists, and chemists, as well as energy, geotechnical, and chemical engineers. This GRC specifically encourages intensive exchange and discussion of unpublished, state-of-the-art advances in gas hydrate sciences and allied disciplines. This year we are also hosting a Gordon Research Seminar that brings early investigators and students together prior to the GRC meeting.