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The Importance of Detailed Geological Characterization for Future Expanded Use of Gas Storage in the Sustainable Energy
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, 80th EAGE Conference and Exhibition 2018, Jun 2018, Volume 2018, p.1 - 5
Abstract
Salt cavern projects are often managed as pure engineering projects with little involvement of experienced geoscientists. Consequently the post-salt overburden is often regarded as being elastic, isotropic, homogenous and continuous. In fact worldwide salt mining and hydrocarbon exploration experiences proved that post-salt sections of salt domes often are exactly the opposite, heavily faulted; thus at least inelastic and discontinuous. Whereas model simplifications may accelerate project planning, ignoring these well-known subsurface facts may have severe costly consequences like for instance shearing of well casings due to fault reactivation or sinkholes at a later stage. This paper describes one of the rarely published cases where anisotropically processed 3D pre-stack depth migrated seismic data have been utilized for detailed geological site characterization at an early stage of planning a new salt cavern gas storage facility site in Jemgum (Lower Saxony basin, Germany). In contrast to commonly built pseudo 3D salt cavern models utilizing sparse input data, the creation of a true, detailed and spatially reliable 3D subsurface structural model enabled an early assessment of potential short, mid and long-term risks and its potential environmental impacts.