A Numerical Investigation of Enhancing Hydrate Dissociation via Co-Production with Shallow Gas upon a Large-Scale Model

Investigations into the production of gas hydrates from marine sediments have demonstrated that commercial viability necessitates a daily gas production rate of 130,000 to 200,000 m3. However, the second-round trial production in the South China Sea yielded only 28,700 m3/day, falling short of the rule-of-thumb for economic feasibility. Given the coexistence of natural gas hydrates (NGHs) and shallow gas in the subsurface reservoirs of the South China Sea, a co-production strategy (simultaneously exploiting NGHs and shallow gas) was proposed to reduce costs and enhance production efficiency. In this study, a large-scale, three-dimensional, multi-phase, and multi-component model was established based on the NGHs–shallow gas symbiotic system in the Qiongdongnan Basin. A dual horizontal well configuration was designed to extract NGHs from the hydrate-bearing layer and natural gas from the underlying shallow gas layer. Co-production via dual horizontal wells expanded the hydrate dissociation zone from the near-wellbore region to deeper strata, particularly enhanced the dissociation of NGHs in the region between the two horizontal wells. By the 10th year of simulation, the peak and cumulative volume rate of CH4 released from hydrate dissociation increased to 3.52 and 1.45 times under the co-production scenario, resulting in a 2.4-fold improvement in NGH recovery efficiency. Sensitivity analyses of bottom hole pressure and length of the horizontal intervals revealed that reducing bottom hole pressure significantly improved the daily and accumulative gas production from hydrate-bearing reservoirs. The length of horizontal intervals emerged as a critical factor influencing the dissociation of NGHs, whereas it had negligible impact on gas production from shallow gas reservoir with satisfied permeability. This study provides insights into optimizing the development of marine hydrate resources via integrated exploitation strategies.