Indonesia ranks third in terms of gas reserves in the Asia Pacific region after Australia and China, contributing 1.4 percent of total global gas reserves. Despite high demand for natural gas, there are over 169.90 trillion cubic meters of undeveloped natural gas reserves, referred as stranded gas (BP, 2013). The primary reason for a gas field being undeveloped is the gas transportation, which includes the reserves are too small to justify the investment, and the distant markets require expensive pipelines, etc. The gas transportation technology that includes pipelines, CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) are variously limited by distance, and capacity. In some situations natural gas hydrates (NGH) could be a better option in terms of effectiveness in distance, capacity and CAPEX due to its lower pressure requirements than CNG and moderate temperatures compared to cooling requirements for LNG (approximately ?162 °C) . NGH is a curious kind of chemical compound called clathrate, which consists of two dissimilar molecules mechanically intermingled but not chemically bonded. That is, one molecule forms a framework that traps the other molecule, providing high stability (Dutch, 2003). In this paper, the NGH application will be evaluated technically and economically. It will be compared with other methods such as LNG and CNG, on operation challenges like high pressure and low temperature. The study was supported by a numerical simulation using HYSYS V7.3 to analyze the probable operating conditions of NGH. The energy requirements then will be compared to determine the most efficient option for long- distance gas transportation.
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