Harold Rogers
Harold Rogers is the GIS team lead for the State of Texas Advanced Resource Recovery Group (STARR) at the Bureau of Economic Geology. Along with helping STARR with various GIS projects, Harold uses his skills in subsurface modeling, well analysis, animation, and visualization to assist a variety of Bureau research groups. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Radio-Television-Film and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master’s in Geospatial Information Science and Technology from North Carolina State University. Harold has been working in the field of GIS for 15 years and the Bureau of Economic Geology for over 10 years.
Abstract:
Salt caverns are increasingly considered for fluid storage in the Permian Basin of Texas. The types of fluids considered for salt cavern storage include: oil field wastes, natural gas, condensate and brine. Salt formations provide a temporary home for products needed for consumption on a daily basis. Salt caverns are stable with respect to injection and withdraw cycles so they can accommodate a wide variety of energy resources. The storage capacity can be large enough for temporary storage, seasonal reserves, or strategic reserves. In this study, we present the advantages and disadvantages of three candidates for salt cavern storage potential. We use publicly available data as well as data from the Bureau of Economic Geology.
Through fractionation of the natural gas liquids and the liquid petroleum gas different products are stored underground for fuel and feedstock for power plants, refineries, homes and businesses. Operators have to carefully monitor liquid saturation to prevent salt caverns increasing in size causing salt creep, cavern roof collapse or uncontrolled leaching into water supplies.
Oil field wastes that are most troublesome to dispose of through regular class II injection are good candidates for salt caverns. There are three options for storing natural gas, condensate, brine and potentially hydrogen in the US. These include (1) depleted oil fields, (2) salt formations, and (3) depleted aquifers. Salt formations can either be as deep and narrow or bedded making them wide and shallow. Depleted aquifers can be converted for storage of natural gas liquids by injection at high pressure both utilizing the permeable rock formations as overburden and the water of varying quality as containment.