Concealed morphology construction and stability evaluation of two butted-well horizontal salt caverns gas storage

Liupeng Fu, Jinyang Fan, Xilin Shi, Shijie Zhu, Xinxing Wei and Hao Tian

Energy, 2025, vol. 317, issue C

Abstract: In employing numerical simulations to analyze the stability of two butted-well horizontal (TWH) salt caverns, it is imperative to first construct the cavern morphology. However, due to the limited height of the horizontal section of the TWH caverns, sediment is deposited into the lower part of the cavern, filling the horizontal channel. Therefore, the concealed morphology in this region can't be obtained. In this study, the three-dimensional concealed morphology of the A1-A2 TWH salt caverns is constructed based on the following data: salt mining, sonar detection, the water-soluble cavern creation law, drilling trajectory and stratigraphic core. The numerical simulation results are combined to evaluate the long-term stability of the TWH salt caverns gas storage using the entropy weight and matter-element extension method. The findings indicate that the A1-A2 caverns constructed via the proposed methodology exhibit a discrepancy of merely 7.3 % in comparison to the actual cavern volume. The storage demonstrates good stability at circulating air pressures of 7–18 MPa and above. The stability of this storage is obtained to be in very stable state. This study presents a novel approach for the construction of three-dimensional concealed morphology and the assessment of long-term operational stability for TWH salt caverns gas storage.

Keywords: Two butted-well horizontal salt caverns; Concealed morphology construction; Stability evaluation; Entropy weight; Matter-element extension (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:317:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225001410

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.134499

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