Program," is located on the northwest side of Richards Islands and is a part of the Mackenzie Delta, entering the Beaufort Sea. The production research well project was developed in the Mallik region after methane hydrate was recovered there by a research project in 1998, led by the Geological Survey of Canada and the former Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JNOC), with participation by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the United States Department of Energy (DOE) as well as other industry partners. The project included working efforts of more than 200 scientists and engineers worldwide. Up to today numerous papers have been published to document the results and additional datasets, and provide information on in-situ physical and geophysical properties of gas hydrates, gas hydrate production testing, and the relevance of gas hydrates to energy, climate and geohazard research. Its main outcome was the characterization of gas hydrates found in the Northwest Territories and planning of additional field and laboratory studies. The aim was to determine the future potential for methane as an important factor of the future world energy consumption, additional energy policy and to assess the production and properties of the gas hydrate and its stability. The program was further developed to find out if the increased use of burning methane could contribute to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale, impacting future climate change if released into the environment. Furthermore, the scientific study aimed to develop new safety techniques guarding against any hazardous conditions created by gas hydrate drilling and pipeline construction and give insights into drilling and production technology with regard to a new industrial development. Over a timeline of six years – drilling began in December 2001 – three different wells (two observation wells: Mallik 3L-38 and 4L-38, one production test well: Mallik 5L-38) were successfully drilled at the Mallik research site. Field operations included the acquisition of a full suite of open-hole logs, permafrost- and hydrate-bearing continuous core, and cross-hole tomography experiments before, during and after production testing. The wells were drilled vertically to a depth of 1,160 meters below land surface. Subsequent analysis of the logging data confirmed the existence of a total of approximately 110 meters (360 feet) of combined 50-90% saturated gas hydrate-bearing unconsolidated medium-grained sand reservoir intervals within interbedded sand, sandstone, silt, and siltstone of the Oligocene Kugmallit Sequence . The natural gas hydrates in these