Предварительная оценка мировых запасов аквальных залежей газогидратов

Preliminary Estimate of the World Reserves of Aquatic Gas-Hydrate Accumulations

The authors describe the present state of and predict the world consumption of the energy resources for the period until year 2020. The limited and non-renewable nature of the traditional resources of natural (combustible) gas and the growing demand for this energy carrier in the 21st century force the mankind to pay attention to its significant reserves stored in non-traditional sources, first of all in the natural gas hydrates. According to the present-day geological knowledge, huge amounts of hydrocarbon gas are stored as solid gas-hydrate deposits in sea and oceanic bottom sediments. E.g. potential reserves of methane in gas-hydrates are estimated as 2 × 1016m3. By now over 220 gas-hydrate deposits have been discovered on the bottoms of seas, oceans and large lakes. It has been found that about 98% of those deposits are concentrated on the shelf and continental slope of the World ocean (off the coasts of North, Central and South Americas, North Asia, Norway, Japan and Africa, as well as in Caspian and Black seas) at depths over 200-700 m, and only 2% are located in polar regions of continents.