Storage Of Oil And Gas In Unlined Caverns
Authors: Morfeldt Carl-Olof 
Published: December 2007

This paper was prepared for the SPE-European Spring Meeting 1974 of the Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME, held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, May 29–30, 1974. Permission to copy is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words. Illustrations may not be copied. The abstract should contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in the JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or the SOCIETY OF publication in the JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or the SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is usually granted upon request to the Editor PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is usually granted upon request to the Editor of the appropriate journal provided agreement to give proper credit is made.

Discussion of this paper is invited. Three copies of any discussion should be sent to the Netherland Section of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, P. O. Box 228, The Hague, the Netherlands. Such discussion may be presented at the above meeting and, with the paper, may be considered for publication in one of the two SPE magazines.

Only a few months ago our world felt the bite of an energy crisis, whose consequences we re still experiencing. However, the crisis did have the positive effect of encouraging reflection and activated many groups to speculation as to how man can solve the problems of the supply of energy on a long-term basis and economize with raw goods. In this chain of issues for study the distribution of oil and the short-term storage of petroleum products are vital links.

The development in the petroleum industry everywhere in the world is towards an increased need for larger storage installations (distribution terminals and short-term storage facilities). Underground installations for liquid petroleum products have been in use in Sweden for more than 25 years and still function faultlessly. Today in Scandinavia there are more than 200 rock cavern installations for the storage of liquid petroleum products (light and heavy fuel oil for heating, engine fuel oil, gasoline, petrol and petroleum spirit, crude oil). In recent years storage facilities for fuel oil with capacities of up to 1 million m have been completed.

For the principles of functioning of the underground storage cavern and historical aspects of the technical development you are referred to earlier papers (Morfeldt: Oslo, 1969, Pennsylvania and Stuttgart, 1972). Pennsylvania and Stuttgart, 1972). The move to supertankers and the increased construction of refineries in recent years have made large rock storage facilities for crude oil a current issue. In 1965 Shell decided to build its first underground facilities for the storage of crude oil on the Swedish west coast by the Koppartrans' refinery in Gothenburg. Here was built the world's largest underground crude oil stores of that time consisting of three rock-caverns with a total capacity of 180,000 m3. These facilities entered service in the beginning of 1967. Encouraged by this success Shell began in 1966 to build another underground storage facility for crude oil near Sola in Norway: two caverns with a capacity of 5 000 m3 each and two with 60,000 m3 capacity, 16 metres wide and 24 metres high. This installation was completed in September 1967.