Gas hydrates are a crystalline solid formed of water and gas. It looks and acts much like ice, but it contains huge amounts of methane.
Under favourable conditions of high pressure and low temperature, water molecules form cages which encapsulate gas molecules inside a hydrogen-bonded solid lattice.
Gas hydrates are a very costly problem in petroleum exploration and production operations. Hydrate clathrates can plug gas gathering systems and transmission pipelines subsea and on the surface. In offshore explorations, the main concern is the multiphase transfer lines from the wellhead to the production platform where low seabed temperatures and high operation pressures promote the formation of gas hydrates. The figure below shows plugging of a subsea hydrocarbon pipeline because of hydrate formation.
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