A salt cavern abandonment test

Thousands of caverns have been leached out from deep salt formations. They are used for saturated brine production and/or hydrocarbons storage. They will be abandoned some day: the access well will be plugged with cement, isolating a large bubble of saturated brine. The later evolution of such a bubble raises serious concerns for environmental protection; salt creep and brine thermal expansion can lead to brine pressure build-up and rock-mass fracture, then brine seepage can lead to pollution of overlying water-bearing strata. Taking into account salt formation permeability leads to less pessimistic scenarios. An 18-month test has been performed on a deep brine-filled cavern. The objective was to measure the brine equilibrium pressure reached when the cavern is closed. Such an equilibrium is reached when salt mass creep, which leads to cavern shrinkage, balances brine permeation through the cavern wall. This objective was met by imposing different pressure levels and observing whether the pressure increased (or decreased) with respect to time. Data misinterpretation (i.e., a well leak instead of a cavern-proper leak) was precluded by a special monitoring system. The observed equilibrium pressure was significantly smaller than geostatic pressure, alleviating any fracture risk for a sealed and abandoned cavern in this salt formation. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.