A NEW WAY OF GAS TRANSPORTATIONSOLID STATE TRANSPORTATION OF NATURAL GAS IN THE FORM OF HYDRATES

The hydrate has a peculiar cagelike crystal structure,1m~3 of hydrate can envelop 150～180m~3 of natural gas.The new method of natural gas storage and transportation in hydrate form has the advantages of safety reliability and low cost and can replace the conventional methods for natural gas storage and transportation——the method by pipeline and that by liquefaction,and especially it is suitable for developing offshore gas fields and the small gas fields in remote area,gibing rise to scientists' attention.In this paper the capital costs of four forms for natural gas transportation have been compared,and the results have shown that the costs of an NGH chain is the lowest than of others,and it should be a new way of gas transportation.Some technical problems that needs to be solved in the performance of gas transportation in the form of NGH are put forward.