Several trial productions of natural gas hydrate (NGH) on onshore and offshore reservoirs have been implemented, signaling the start of the stage of technology development for its industrial exploitation. Several methods for NGH exploitation have been proposed, but none of them has been verified applicable to the commercial exploitation of NGH. The applicability of a technology to NGH exploitation is subject to the evaluation of its economic potential, but unfortunately few relevant studies have been conducted. In this research, each exploitation technology for NGH is evaluated for its economic potential as referring to the break-even production rate with energy return on investment (EROI) analysis. Sensitivity analysis is also performed to specify the effect of each key factor, such as gas production rate, gas-water ratio, efficiency of thermal stimulation, injection-production ratio for the methods of chemical injection or CO₂ replacement, on the standard EROI. The results obtained indicate that depressurization is the most promising method, because on it the lowest critical production rate would be required for commercial exploitation of NGH, ranging from 0.16 to 0.25 million m³/day/well. Comparing with other unconventional oil and gas, the commercial exploitation of NGH still relies on further technological breakthroughs, especially those for the improvement of production rate.

陆上、海上储层天然气水合物（NGH）多次试采，标志着天然气水合物产业化开发进入技术开发阶段。已经提出了几种 NGH 开发方法，但没有一种方法被证实适用于 NGH 的商业开发。一项技术对 NGH 开发的适用性取决于对其经济潜力的评估，但遗憾的是，相关研究很少。在这项研究中，每项 NGH 开发技术的经济潜力都被评估为参考具有能源投资回报 (EROI) 分析的盈亏平衡生产率。还进行了敏感性分析以指定每个关键因素的影响，例如产气率、气水比、₂替换，在标准 EROI 上。获得的结果表明，减压是最有前途的方法，因为在此方法上，NGH 的商业开发所需的临界生产率最低，范围为 0.16 至 25 万米³ /天/井。与其他非常规油气相比，NGH的商业开发还需要进一步的技术突破，尤其是提高产率的技术突破。