Temperature and Pressure Variations in Salt Caverns Used for Oil Reserve during Storage Process

Temperature and pressure variations have important significance in environmental protection and safety operation of oil reservoir in salt caverns. Shrinkage of salt caverns, effect of permeability and fluid thermal pressurization rate were discussed and coupled to predict volume lost of salt caverns, variation of temperature and pressure of fluids in oil storage caverns. The coupled model is illustrated by a calculation example, which based on the geological data from SPR(American Strategic Petroleum Reserve) and Jintan underground gas storage with salt caverns. This example shows that the temperature difference between fluid injected and stored has elimated after ten years storage, the value of pressure built up has reached 4.7 MPa, the rate volume lost of 0.023% per year. The result indicates temperature changed slowly in salt cavern, yet thermal pressurization and permeability have great influence on pressure history of salt caverns. The shrinkage of salt caverns caused by salt creep is the leading factor of pressure building-up in salt caverns.