The Purpose of Underground Gas Storage

Natural gas supply sources often experience large variations of flow. Gas demand from pipelines also can fluctuate seasonally, daily and even hourly. Underground gas storage is an efficient way to balance these discrepancies between gas supply input and gas market demand. Gas goes into storage when market requirements are lower than supply volumes flowing into the pipeline.Gas comes out of storage when market demand exceeds available supply.

Effective use of underground gas storage requires delivery and permanent containment of a certain level of gas as "base" or "cushion" gas. The base gas maintains the pressure required for gas delivery at the minimum acceptable flow rate.

Gas delivery from an underground gas storage facility requires the pre-injection of the desired level of "top" or "working" gas. The rate at which an underground gas storage facility can take gas on injection and deliver gas on withdrawal is normally dependent on the characteristics of both the underground reservoir and the surface facilities.