[jvanderbot]

I believe the intent is to offset oil production with the methane. Somehow. Maybe making other hydrocarbons from it?

[regularfry]

If other hydrocarbons can be created in a form that's easy to sequester, that's useful.

[kortex]

There's a lot of interest in cracking methane to ethylene and hydrogen, both which are super useful in their own right. There's also the Fischer-Tropsch process which synthesises arbitrary linear alkane hydrocarbons. That requires more intermediate steps, to make syngas from methane and water.