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Permalink Reply by king john on April 22, 2009 at 6:50

mike
do you happen to know if there is a salt dome in that area ? they are often used for storage.
king john

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Permalink Reply by The_Baron on April 22, 2009 at 7:43

Buistineau is a depleted resevoir, not a salt dome.

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Permalink Reply by The_Baron on April 22, 2009 at 7:43

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Permalink Reply by The_Baron on April 22, 2009 at 7:44

There is no cavern, but a highly permable sand resevoir.

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Permalink Reply by The_Baron on April 22, 2009 at 7:45

as per the EIA:

Depleted Reservoir. Conversion of a field/reservoir from production to storage makes use of existingwells, gathering systems, and pipeline connections. The geology and operating characteristics of a depleted field are known. However, choices of storage field location and performance are limited by the inventory of depleted fields in any region. Most natural gas storage sites in the United States are depleted natural gas or oil fields located close to consumption centers.

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Permalink Reply by The_Baron on April 22, 2009 at 10:08

I don't beleive subsidence is an issue. the formation is solid rock, just very porous.

Anyway, I believe I have led us on a detour away from the topic at hand. From my understanding, the storage facility is a subsurface easement. The formation is isolated, but I have heard of stories of wells that were close to the storage that would produce more gas when the facility was full (gas leaking out of storage, imagine a upside down cup, when the cup is full of gas, gas leaks out into surounding areas). I don't think you could drill through the facility (it would be overpressured, risk of blowout, compromise the integrity of the facility, etc.), but maybe under it (say with a lateral). I have no land experiance around this facility, or any other underground storage for that matter, so i do not know if this land is available for drilling or not.

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Permalink Reply by Two Dogs, Pirate on April 22, 2009 at 10:58

I have taken leases above Ruston where there is a gas storage facility. The lease had a clause that stated that you could drill through but could not perf between xxx ft and xxx ft.

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Permalink Reply by Dion Warr, CPL on October 13, 2009 at 16:37

Bump...

Also, you can drill through a GSA; notification must be made to the owner of the GSA for monitoring purposes. (Pressure diffs = stored gas escaping; not a good thing). As the GSA operator will typically have rights in place prior to drilling of such a well, the operator will have a close eye on all drilling operations which penetrate the storage formation(s). The granting of the GSA agreements (easements) will preclude the surface and/or mineral owners from perforating the formation(s) within the injection/storage zone.

GSAs are generally held by subsurface easements (as one might expect from gas pipeline operators and other public utilities). The storage rights are considered to have a more or less fixed value (paid under the terms of the easement). Formation of GSAs requires subsurface easements from a minimum of 80% of the owners, generally, prior to the granting of permits. In a depleted reservoir situation, the operator must be able to submit data and other information supporting the positions that (1) the reservoir is depleted, (2) can be completely delineated and that the reservoir does not significantly communicate with other potential reservoirs (sealed by impervious cap rock, trapped or otherwise pinched out), and (3) reasonable offers of compensation have been made to all affected owners (as generally the GSA operator can be afforded the ability to expropriate the subsurface storage rights from other remaining holdout owners.

Gas stored within a GSA has already been captured and reduced to possession (thus it is no longer subject to the doctrine of the dominant mineral estate, nor the mineral owner's right to capture). If it can be proved that gas from the GSA has migrated into other strata and is subsequently 'recaptured' within producing wells (through migration or due to mechanical defect in the wellbore), the owner of the stored gas (the GSA operator) may sue to recover all gas within the production stream deemed to have been formerly reduced to possession and placed in storage (a situation that can leave many an unhappy mineral owner in its aftermath).

As stated elsewhere in the discussion, depleted reservoir GSAs very commonly employ previously drilled wells (in many cases some of the wells which depleted the reservoir in the first place), along with other wells drilled explicitly for the purpose of managing the reservoir (whether they are used as injection wells, monitoring wells, or other purpose). Salt dome storage facilities requires the drilling of wells which are then used to 'mine' salt in the planned storage area by the use of solution mining. Once the underground storage caverns have been formed and storage integrity has been established, natural gas can be injected into the system. Onshore, it is relatively rare in this area to drill a production well through the salt formation.

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