Shashwat Gupta Ray
shashwat@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Senior Principal Scientist at CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography, Pawan Dewangan has won the prestigious National Geoscience Award 2023 for his contributions towards exploration of gas hydrates, which store vast amounts of methane gas, making them a promising future alternative energy resource and help in reducing dependency on imported petroleum products.
“Gas hydrates are ice-like substances that store huge quantities of methane: 1 cubic meter of solid hydrate approximately contains 164 cubic meters of methane and 0.8 cubic meters of pure water. The global amount of total carbon trapped in the sediments of the oceanic regions or in the permafrost regions in the form of methane hydrates is twice of which is found in all fossil fuels combined,” Dewangan told O Heraldo.
In the Indian continental margins, gas hydrates are present in substantial quantities, particularly along the Krishna-Godavari, Mahanadi, Cauvery-Mannar, and Andaman forearc basins at water depths exceeding 700 meters.
“I used geophysical modelling, interpretation, and inversion techniques to understand gas hydrate systems in the Krishna-Godavari (KG), Mahanadi, Cauvery-Mannar, and Andaman forearc basins. Particularly, my expertise in fractured clay gas hydrate deposits led to the discovery of active methane cold seeps off Krishna-Godavari, Cauvery-Mannar, and Andaman forearc basins and has placed India on the global cold seep map,” Dewangan said.
Cold seeps are shallow areas on the ocean floor where gases percolate through underlying rock and sediment layers and emerge on the ocean bottom.
While gas hydrates are still in the research and development (R&D) stage globally, with no commercial production yet, significant progress is being made.
“In India, we have an R&D program under the aegis of the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) that is dedicated to the exploration and potential exploitation of gas hydrate deposits. My research contributes to this national effort, particularly in identifying and understanding the gas hydrate system along the Indian continental margins,” he said.
Gas hydrates are considered as vast resources of natural gas and are known to occur in marine sediments on continental shelf margins. According to the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), India’s gas hydrate resources are estimated to be about 1,894 trillion cubic meters (TCM) along the Western, Eastern, and Andaman offshore areas.
“Gas hydrates could be a game-changer for India’s energy security. By harnessing the vast gas hydrate resources within our Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), India could potentially reduce its reliance on foreign energy sources,” he said.