IP Library › Granted Patent US 12,397,994
Granted Patent B2
US 12,397,994 · App. 18/185,667 · Granted Aug 26, 2025

Method to enhance subsurface gas storage in salt caverns

Inventors: Rajesh Goteti (Katy, TX); Hasmukh A. Patel (Houston, TX)
Assignee: SAUDI ARABIAN OIL COMPANY
B65G5/00E21B33/03E21B41/0064E21B43/28F17C1/007F17C11/007F17C2221/033F17C2223/035F17C2223/036F17C2270/0155
View Patent ↗
Loading inventors, assignments & file history…
Monitor This Case
Get email alerts when status or documents change.
Order Certified Copies
Most orders are placed with the USPTO same day — all within 24 business hours.
Order via The Patent Place →
Pre-filled with this patent's details
Quick Facts
Patent No.
US 12,397,994
App. No.
18/185,667
Granted
Aug 26, 2025
Kind
B2
Abstract

The present disclosure is directed toward a system and a method for storing gas. The system for storing gas comprises a salt formation, an overburden, an underburden, a salt cavern within the salt formation, a sorbent within the salt cavern, and a well traversing the surface that connects the surface with the salt cavern. The method for storing gas comprises several steps. A dissolving fluid comprising water is injected into a salt formation to produce a brine and a salt cavern within the salt formation. The brine is then removed from the salt cavern. A sorbent is then placed within the salt cavern before gas is injected into the salt cavern.

Claims (23)

1. A system for subterranean gas storage comprising:

a well traversing a surface, an overburden, and a salt formation, the well connecting the surface with a salt cavern located within the salt formation,

wherein the overburden is proximal to the surface and adjacent to the salt formation,

wherein the salt formation is adjacent to an underburden that is distal to the overburden, and

wherein a microporous sorbent is disposed within the salt cavern.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the sorbent comprises at least one microporous material selected from the group consisting of: activated carbons, metal organic frameworks, porous polymers, aluminosilicates, zeolites, porous silicates, and porous silica.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the sorbent comprises the at least one microporous material and a binder.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein a surface area of the sorbent is between about 1000 m 2 /g and about 3000 m 2 /g.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein a pore volume of the sorbent is between about 0.35 cm 3 /g and about 0.50 cm 3 /g.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein a volume of the salt cavern is between about 500,000 m 3 and about 1,000,000 m 3 .

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein a quantity of the sorbent in the salt cavern is between about 1000 metric tons and about 0.5 million metric tons.

8. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a gas injection and withdrawal system attached to the well and configured to dispose gas within the salt cavern or withdraw gas from the salt cavern.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the microporous sorbent is disposed within the salt cavern and at least a portion of the well.

10. A method for storing gas comprising:

injecting a dissolving fluid comprising water into a salt formation, producing a salt cavern within the salt formation and a brine;

removing the brine from the salt cavern;

placing a microporous sorbent within the salt cavern; and

inserting gas into the salt cavern.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein placing the sorbent within the salt cavern comprises injecting into the salt cavern a slurry comprising a carrying liquid and the sorbent.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the placing further comprises allowing the sorbent to settle within the salt cavern, removing at least a portion of the carrying liquid from the salt cavern, and injecting an additional volume of the slurry into the salt cavern.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the injecting, allowing to settle, and the removing are repeated until at least 95 vol % of the salt cavern is filled with the sorbent.

14. The method of claim 10 , wherein placing the sorbent within the salt cavern comprises transporting the sorbent into the salt cavern using a compressed gas.

15. The method of claim 10 , wherein placing the sorbent within the salt cavern comprises at least one of distributing the sorbent within the salt cavern and agitating the sorbent within the salt cavern to facilitate settling of the sorbent.

Assignments (3)
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Oct 18, 2023
From: SAUDI ARAMCO UPSTREAM TECHNOLOGIES COMPANY
To: SAUDI ARABIAN OIL COMPANY
Reel/Frame 065268/0001 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Oct 17, 2023
From: ARAMCO SERVICES COMPANY
To: SAUDI ARAMCO UPSTREAM TECHNOLOGIES COMPANY
Reel/Frame 065255/0318 →
ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST Recorded Apr 20, 2023
From: GOTETI, RAJESH; PATEL, HASMUKH A
To: ARAMCO SERVICES COMPANY
Reel/Frame 063386/0472 →
Continuity (2)
Provisional Application 63269508 · Mar 17, 2022
Related Publication 20230294920A1 · Sep 21, 2023
References Cited (58)
US 3574402A · Davis, II · 1971 [cited by examiner]
US 3724898A · Jacoby · 1973 [cited by examiner]
US 3807181A · Kuhne · 1974 [cited by examiner]
US 4949749A · Fowler et al. · 1990 [cited by applicant]
US 5957539A · Durup · 1999 [cited by examiner]
US 9718618B2 · Oates · 2017 [cited by applicant]
US 10816494B2 · Cerepi et al. · 2020 [cited by applicant]
US 11560322B1 · Lu · 2023 [cited by applicant]
US 20090309408A1 · Bishop · 2009 [cited by examiner]
US 20110033238A1 · Riese · 2011 [cited by examiner]
US 20110175428A1 · Haugen · 2011 [cited by examiner]
US 20110305515A1 · Drnevich · 2011 [cited by applicant]
US 20140262739A1 · Fong · 2014 [cited by examiner]
US 20160089705A1 · Oates · 2016 [cited by applicant]
US 20160361741A1 · Kondo et al. · 2016 [cited by applicant]
CA 2844919A1 · 2012 [cited by applicant]
CN 108562617B · 2020 [cited by applicant]
DE 19857447A1 · 2000 [cited by applicant]
EP 0506600A1 · 1992 [cited by applicant]
JP 2010201330A · 2010 [cited by applicant]
JP 20100201330 · 2010 [cited by examiner]
First Examination Report issued in Saudi Arabia Application No. 123441432, dated Dec. 28, 2023 (7 pages). [cited by applicant]
H. A. Patel et al., “High capacity carbon dioxide adsorption by inexpensive covalent organic Polymers”, J. Mater. Chem., 2012, 22, 8431. <https://doi.org/10.1039/C2JM30761H>. (7 pages). [cited by applicant]
H. A. Patel et al., “Highly Stable Nanoporous Sulfur-Bridged Covalent Organic Polymers for Carbon Dioxide Removal”, Adv. Funct. Mater. 2013, 23, 2270-2276. <https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201202442>. (7 pages). [cited by applicant]
R. Ullah et al., “Investigation of Ester- and Amide-Linker-Based Porous Organic Polymers for Carbon Dioxide Capture and Separation at Wide Temperatures and Pressures”, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2016, 8, 20772?20785. <… [cited by applicant]
E. Deniz et al., “A combined computational and experimental study of high pressure and supercritical CO2 adsorption on Basolite MOFs”, Microporous and Mesoporous Materials 175 (2013) 34-42. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.… [cited by applicant]
H. A. Patel et al., “Carbon Dioxide Capture Adsorbents: Chemistry and Methods”, ChemSusChem, 2016, <https://doi.org/10.1002/cssc.201601545>. (16 pages). [cited by applicant]
D. G. Caglayan et al., “Technical potential of salt caverns for hydrogen storage in Europ”, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 2020, vol. 45, No. 11, pp. 6793-6805. (22 pages). [cited by applicant]
R. Habibi, “An investigation into design concepts, design methods and stability criteria of salt caverns”, Oil & Gas Science and Technology-Revue d'IFP Energies nouvelles, 2019, vol. 74, No. 14, pp. 1-17 (17 pages). [cited by applicant]
Islamoglu et al., “Benchmark Study of Hydrogen Storage in Metal-Organic Frameworks under Temperature and Pressure Swing Conditions”, ACS Energy Letters, 2018, vol. 3, pp. 748-754. (7 pages). [cited by applicant]
M. T. Kapelewski et al., “Record High Hydrogen Storage Capacity in the Metal?Organic Framework Ni2(m-dobdc) at Near-Ambient Temperatures”, Chem. Mater., 2018, vol. 30, No. 22, pp. 8179-8189 (26 pages). [cited by applicant]
M. P. Laban, “Hydrogen Storage in Salt Caverns: Chemical modelling and analysis of large-scale hydrogen storage in underground salt caverns”, TU Dellft, 2020 (100 pages). [cited by applicant]
D. Marco-Lozar et al., “Activated carbon monoliths for methane storage: influence of binder”, Carbon, 2002, vol. 40, pp. 2817-2825 (9 pages). [cited by applicant]
M. Mohan et al., 2018. “Hydrogen storage in carbon materials—A review”, Energy Storage, 2018, e35. pp. 1-26 (26 pages). [cited by applicant]
V. K. Singh, “Geological Storage: Underground Gas Storage”, 8th Biennial International Conference & Exposition on Petroleum Geophysics, 2010 (7 pages). [cited by applicant]
R. Tarkowski, et al., “Salt domes in Poland-potential sites for hydrogen storage in caverns”, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 2018, vol. 43, No. 46, pp. 21414-21427 (14 pages). [cited by applicant]
J. K. Warren, “Evaporites: sediments, resources and hydrocarbons”, Springer Science & Business Media, 2006 (30 pages). [cited by applicant]
J. K. Warren, “Salt usually seals, but sometimes leaks: Implications for mine and cavern stabilities in the short and long term”, Earth-Science Reviews, 2017, vol. 165, pp. 302-341 (40 pages). [cited by applicant]
D. Zivar et al., “Underground hydrogen storage: A comprehensive review”, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 2021, vol. 46, pp. 23436-23462 (27 pages). [cited by applicant]
M. J. Prosniewski et al., “Controlled charge and discharge of a 40-L monolithic adsorbed natural gas tank”, Adsorption, 2018, vol. 24, pp. 541-550 <https://doi.org/10.1007/s10450-018-9961-2>. (10 pages). [cited by applicant]
J. P. Marco-Lozar et al., “Gas Storage Scale-up at Room Temperature on High Density Carbon Materials”, Carbon 76, 2014, pp. 123-132, <http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.carbon.2014.04.058>. (27 pages). [cited by applicant]
V. Rozyyev et al., “High-capacity methane storage in flexible alkane-linked porous aromatic network polymers”, Nature Energy, 2019, vol. 4, 604, <https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-019-0427-x> (8 pages). [cited by applicant]
J. A. Mason et al., “Methane storage in flexible metal-organic frameworks with intrinsic thermal management”, Nature, 2015, vol. 527, pp. 357-361, <https://doi.org/10.1038/nature15732> (15 pages). [cited by applicant]
S. P. Tedds, “Microporous Materials for Hydrogen Storage”; A thesis, Dec. 2010 (337 pages). [cited by applicant]
L. S. Blankenship II, et al. “Oxygen-rich microporous carbons with exceptional hydrogen storage capacity”; Nature Communications, Oct. 29, 2021 (12 pages). [cited by applicant]
J. Andersson, et al. “Large-scale Storage of Hydrogen”; International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 2019, vol. 44, pp. 11901-11919 (20 pages). [cited by applicant]
P. Ramirez-Vidal, et al. “A Step Forward in Understanding the Hydrogen Absorption and Compression on Activated Carbons”, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2021, vol. 13, pp. 12562-12574 (13 pages). [cited by applicant]
E. Rozzi, et al. “Dynamic modeling and thermal management of a Power-to-Power system with hydrogen storage in microporous absorbent materials”, Journal of Energy Storage, 2021, vol. 41, 102953 (15 pages). [cited by applicant]
G. Sdanghi, et al. “Towards Non-Mechanical Hybrid Hyrdogen Compression for Decentralized Hydrogen Facilities”, Energies, Jun. 17, 2020 (28 pages). [cited by applicant]
M. Bai et al.; “Multiporosity/Multipermeability Approach to the Simulation of Naturally Fractured Reservoirs”, Water Resources Research; vol. 29; No. 6; Jun. 1993; pp. 1621-1633 (13 pages). [cited by applicant]
Chao Liu; “Fundamental solutions to the transversely isotropic poroeslastodynamics Mandel's problem”, International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics; vol. 45; Issue 13; Jul. 24, 2021 (24 page… [cited by applicant]
C. Liu et al., “Poroelastodynamic responses of a dual-porosity dual-permeability material under harmonic loading”, Partial Differential Equations in Applied Mathematics; vol. 4; Dec. 2021 (6 pages). [cited by applicant]
Chao Liu; “Dual-Porosity Dual-Permeability Poroelastodynamics Analytical Solutions for Mandel's Problems”, Journal of Applied Mechanics; vol. 88; Jan. 2021; pp. 1-10 (10 pages). [cited by applicant]
A. Mehrabian et al., “Mandel's problem reloaded”, Journal of Sound and Vibration; vol. 492; Feb. 3, 2021 (16 pages). [cited by applicant]
S. R. Pride et al., “Linear dynamics of double-porosity dual-permeability materials. I. Governing equations and acoustic attenuation”, Physical Reviw E; vol. 68; No. 036603; Sep. 2003 (10 pages). [cited by applicant]
W. Yan et al.; “A robust NMR method to measure porosity of low porosity rocks”, Microporous and Mesoporous Materials; vol. 269; Oct. 2018 (5 pages). [cited by applicant]
Office Action issued by the Saudi Arabian Patent Office for corresponding Saudi Arabian patent application No. 123446812, mailed Mar. 23, 2025 (9 pages). [cited by applicant]
Non-Final Office Action issued by the U.S. patent office for corresponding U.S. Appl. No. 18/185,733, mailed Nov. 27, 2024 (6 pages). [cited by applicant]