Experimental studies of salt-cavity leaching by freshwater injection

Journal Article · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1986 · SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers) Product. Eng.; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2118/13308-PA· OSTI ID:5597816

Reda, D C; Russo, A J

Salt-cavity-leaching experiments were conducted in the laboratory in support of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) program. Cavities of an initially cylindrical geometry were created by hollowing out salt cores from one end, leaving the circular wall and bottom as an integral piece. In three experiments, a salt cavity was placed vertically in a pressure vessel and its interior was filled with saturated brine. The vessel was sealed and pressurized to actual SPR-cavern pressure. Fresh water was injected down a tube into the cavity, while brine was removed simultaneously from the cavity through a withdrawal tube. Both direct (injection-below-withdrawal) and reverse (injection-above-withdrawal) leaching procedures were investigated for essentially the same flow rate conditions and total withdrawal time. A traversable gamma-beam densitometer was positioned between the injection and withdrawal locations in each case and was used as a nonintrusive diagnostic technique to investigate transient phenomena that occurred during the leaching and post-leaching (return to equilibrium) periods. Beam attenuation measurements yielded a quantitative measure of the total, time-integrated, salt-wall recession and the instantaneous, path-length-averaged, brine salinity. Final cavity shapes were measured by gamma-beam densitometry and by sectioning/micrometer techniques. Transient and steady-state measurements were compared with numerical predictions. Experimental results and numerical predictions were in good agreement.

• Research Organization: Sandia National Labs.
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-76DP00789
• OSTI ID: 5597816
• Journal Information: SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers) Product. Eng.; (United States), Journal Name: SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers) Product. Eng.; (United States) Vol. 1:1; ISSN SPENE
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
024000* -- Petroleum-- Storage-- (-1989)
ATTENUATION
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
BRINES
CAVITIES
CONTAINERS
DENSITOMETERS
DISSOLUTION
DRAWDOWN
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ENERGY SOURCES
FLOW RATE
FOSSIL FUELS
FRESH WATER
FUELS
GAMMA RADIATION
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
IONIZING RADIATIONS
LEACHING
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
MINING
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PETROLEUM
PHOTOMETERS
PRESSURE VESSELS
RADIATIONS
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
RESERVES
RESOURCES
SALINITY
SALT CAVERNS
SATURATION
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SOLUTION MINING
STEADY-STATE CONDITIONS
STORAGE
STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE
TIME DEPENDENCE
UNDERGROUND STORAGE
WATER