Salt Cavern Available for State Strategic Petroleum Storage

Salt cavern is one kind of underground oil storage facility formed by leaching bedded salt or salt dorm. The history of using salt cavern to store oil is about 50 years. Salt caverns should be constructed in bedded salt or salt dorm which has big thickness, good quality, and suitable depth. Using salt cavern to store oil is a complicated system involved geological evaluation, cavern design, stability analysis, injection and withdraw, brine balance etc. Though China has not salt dorm distribute, there are plentiful bedded salts in China and many of them are suitable for construction of underground salt cavern oil storage. The authors consider that China have all technique of salt cavern storage. Now, in Eastern China several salt mine such as Jintan in Jiangsu Province are adequate for strategic salt cavern oil storage.