Economics of producing methane (exclusively) from geopressured aquifers along the Gulf Coast

The purpose of this report was to estimate the cost of producing methane (natural gas) from geopressured aquifers inland from and along the coast of the Gulf of New Mexico. No other economic values of the geopressured brines were considered for exploitation. There were several component tasks of such an overall analysis which had to be completed in order to arrive at the final conclusion. (1) An estimate of the reservoir parameters of the geopressured aquifers; their areal extent, net thickness of productive sand, porosity, permeability, effective compressibility. It is these parameters which determine the production rates and the total recovery of the resource that may be expected within an economic time frame. (2) An estimate of the production rates and cumulative production of geopressured aquifers having reservoir properties falling into the range of values that may be anticipated from the results of the first task. (3) An estimate of the operating and capital costs of drilling wells and producing such geopressured aquifers, integral and significant part of the operating costs is the cost of disposing of the large quantities of produced brines following the desorption of the methane. (4) An estimate of the sales price of the recovered methane using appropriate discount rates.