pressure ip steam stream 30 to heat and re gasify the hydrate particles contained within the slurry suitably the ip steam has a pressure in the range 30 to 60 bar absolute preferably the slurry is stirred within the steam sparger sep 4 to aid heating of the slurry with the ip steam a liquid phase stream 6 is removed from the bottom of the steam sparger vessel zone and is sent on to sep 3 for further processing while as discussed above the gaseous phase that is withdrawn from the top of the steam sparger vessel sep 3 stream 7 is commingled with the evolved gas from sep 1 prior to being sent to sep 2 the gaseous phase that is withdrawn from the top of sep 2 stream 8 is cooled in heat exchanger ex 2 against the concentrated hydrate slurry stream 3 and is then passed to separator sep 5 via line 9 where any liquid that condenses out of the gaseous phase in ex 2 is separated from the remaining gaseous phase streams 16 and 10 respectively the gaseous phase 10 is compressed in compressor comp 1 to form a high pressure gaseous stream 11 that is cooled in heat exchanger ex 1 against the concentrated hydrate slurry stream 3 any liquid that condenses out of stream 12 is removed from the bottom of sep 6 stream 14 the remaining gaseous product is removed from sep 6 via line 13 the liquid phase from sep 2 stream 15 is commingled with streams 6 and 16 and optionally with stream 14 before being.