Abstract: This study focuses on the energy variation rules of gas hydrate-bearing coal during deformation and failure, combined with the deviatoric stress-strain curves under conventional triaxial compression and the first law of thermodynamics. The results show that the elastic strain energy is dominant in the process of pre-peak deformation and failure of gas hydrate-bearing coal; while the gas hydrate-bearing coal may experience energy dissipation after the peak stress. Then, the total energy, elastic strain energy and dissipation energy all increase with increasing of the confining pressure and the saturation. Furthermore, the multiple linear regression equation depicting the viriation of saturation and confining pressure was established with the total energy of the critical failure point, with the better fitting effect. Moreover, the elastic energy accumulation at the failure point increases, thus producing the larger dissipation energy.