Software KAVPOOL

Storage facility operators are currently facing huge challenges. On the one hand they need to sell 100 per cent of available working gas volume if at all possible. On the other hand they are required to comply with operational restrictions established by authorities and need to provide evidence of non-discriminatory storage access.

Additionally, injection and withdrawal rates are not constant, but rather depend on various operational factors, whereas customers are looking for flexible storage products which they can implement profitably into their trading instruments.

The application of KAVPOOL can help optimise available storage capacity and therefore contribute to more effective commercialisation of relevant storage products.

What is KAVPOOL?
KAVPOOL is a software tool developed in-house by ESK to simulate all thermodynamic processes associated with gas storage operations in salt caverns. The software tool supports storage operators in their day-to-day business and assists subsurface engineers in planning and designing storage facilities.

The model incorporates all thermodynamic processes associated with gas storage operations in salt caverns. This includes:

Pressure-volume-temperature relationship of the gas in the cavern

Heat transfer between storage medium and surrounding rock

Friction losses due to fluid flows along production tubing and connecting pipelines

Parallel to thermodynamic calculations, the rock mechanics option that was implemented provides information about the operationally induced shrinkage of each individual cavern at storage facilities. The necessary model parameters, such as cavern and well dimensions, rock properties and gas composition, are entered via special auto-generate functions which guarantee quick startups even for storage sites with numerous individual caverns. All calculation results can be displayed in table and chart view.
How can KAVPOOL help you?

The model can be run as a forecasting tool or can be used for back analyses, i.e. investigating actual cavern behaviour by applying common history match procedures. The history match procedure allows initially selected parameters to be adjusted to real storage conditions and the model to be subsequently used to predict specific operational conditions.

For planning purposes the model can be used to find the best cavern configuration (spatial volumes and depths), the number of single caverns necessary to ensure the required volume, the rate capacity and the optimal cavern pool management/operation mode.

KAVPOOL takes a wide range of pure gaseous components into account, meaning it can not only be used for natural gas storage but also for compressed air energy storage (CAES) and hydrogen storage in solution-mined salt caverns.

Your benefits

Forecast possible injection / production volumes on a given rate schedule (considering individual operational constraints)
Identify hydrate formation conditions
Forecast operational induced cavern convergence
Guarantee compliance with defined operational limits

Key features

Simulation of all thermodynamic processes in connection with gas storage in solution-mined caverns
Processing of different rate specifications (in pool or single cavern mode)
Consideration of a high number of different gas components
Calculation of operationally induced cavern convergences