Abstract: Disclosed is a process for manufacturing underground caverns suitable in one embodiment for storage of large volumes of gaseous or liquid materials. The method is an acid dissolution process that can be utilized to form caverns in carbonate rock formations. The caverns can be used to store large quantities of materials near transportation facilities or destination markets. The caverns can be used for storage of materials including fossil fuels, such as natural gas, refined products formed from fossil fuels, or waste materials, such as hazardous waste materials. The caverns can also be utilized for applications involving human access such as recreation or research. The method can also be utilized to form calcium chloride as a by-product of the cavern formation process.

Abstract: A method is provided for simultaneously developing caverns while depositing wastes or other materials in them. A well is first drilled into a salt formation and the development of a salt cavern by means of solution mining is initiated. When the development of the cavern has been carried out to an extent sufficient to accommodate the injection of a prescribed amount of wastes or other materials, injection of the wastes or other materials through the well is started while continuing to develop the cavern by solution mining. The injection of the wastes or other materials may be carried out continuously or intermittently. The proportion and rates of wastes or other materials and mining water injected into the well are monitored and regulated so that cavern development continues at a rate that allows the cavern to reach an intended prescribed size while the wastes or other materials are injected and deposited into the cavern.

Abstract: A method and system for the combined underground storage and production of petroleum. A wellbore is drilled such that the surface is in fluid communication with an oil bearing and a salt bearing formation. Salt is leached from the salt bearing formation to form a cavern. The oil bearing formation is placed in condition for production. The pressure in the salt bearing formation is maintained below the pressure in the oil bearing formation and oil is collected in the cavern that was formed in the salt bearing formation. Periodically, oil is displaced from the cavern to the surface. The system includes a wellbore connecting the surface, an oil bearing formation and a cavern in fluid communication, a check valve is placed within the wellbore to permit the one way flow of oil from the oil bearing formation to the cavern. A wellhead tree seals the wellbore through which passes a conduit to inject gas into the wellbore.

Abstract: A Borehole Mining method comprising driving a borehole, into a production zone under a low-degree angle &agr; (0<&agr;<35°), installation in said borehole a mining device with a hydromonitor and eductor, water-jet cutting of rock, pumping-out a slurry, and creating a cavity. Said tool is positioned such that the hydromonitor is oriented at an angle &bgr; to the horizontal plane. The projection on said plane of the water-jet equals to the desired span of the driven cavity. The borehole may be driven sinking or raising. The BHM tool is inserted/removed from the borehole while mining without rotation, extending said cavity along the borehole. Said borehole can be driven from a land or water surface trough the mother-well drilled vertically and then deviated. It also may be driven straight from an underground mine or open pit floor. After a creation of said cavity, it may back-filled with a waste or hardening material.

Abstract: A method for disposing of a fluid includes the steps of obtaining a fluid; positioning a well into a saturated soil; and pumping the fluid into the well whereby the fluid displaces saturated soil away from the well so as to form a fluid zone in the saturated soil for storing the fluid.

Abstract: The invention concerns a process for excavating by dissolution an underground cavity in a thin salt layer, in order to store a fluid therein. According to the invention, the process includes the steps of producing an injection duct, an extraction duct, and a void for a communication space which places in communication the injection and extraction ducts, producing at least one blind tunnel void communicating with the communication space so as to enable the solvent to circulate and the salt to dissolve in the blind tunnel, injecting via the injection duct a solvent into the communication space, and extracting via the extraction duct the brine formed by the dissolution of the salt on contact with the solvent. The advantage of this process is that the excavated layer has a mechanically stable shape and a larger volume and is produced more cheaply than with prior processes.

Abstract: A new method for making large underground storage caverns in bedded or domal salt deposits for the storage of fluid materials in areas where solution mining water temperatures are low by a process which significantly reduces the amount of time required to make equivalent sized underground storage caverns and which is economically feasible and friendly to the environment. The process includes the warm water solution mining of the underground salt deposits in a manner which conserves the heat contained in the supernatant brine from the underground cavity and employs this heat as a significant source for warming the water employed in the solution mining operation.

Abstract: A method of yielding oil residues or oil containing liquids from contaminated ground layers, includes forming at least two adjacent bore holes in a contaminated ground region, producing connecting passages between the bore holes by loosening and partially rinsing out components of a ground material which surrounds the bore holes and directing a liquid in at least one of the bore holes; applying an underpressure in at least one of the bore holes for aspirating the liquid upwardly, supplying a fluid in at least another one of the bore hole with maintaining a pressure difference between the bore holes, and aspirating in the bore hole under pressure oil separated from the liquid in a raised liquid column or an oil containing cover layer of the liquid column.

Abstract: Used drilling mud, and other high solids oilfield waste which has been contaminated with hydrocarbons, is pumped downhole into a salt cavity where the mud and hydrocarbons separate with the mud gravitating to the bottom of the cavity and the hydrocarbons rising toward the surface of the ground. Brine separates the accumulated hydrocarbons from the residual mud. The brine or the hydrocarbons is selectively removed for sales while additional water or contaminated mud is added to the system as may be required. The salt cavity preferably is located in a geographical area wherein anhydride ledges are formed therewithin upon formation of the cavity. The resultant ledges form baffle plates that coalesces the separated particles of oil and enhance formation of the separated hydrocarbon.

Abstract: In order to provide safety in a borehole communicating in particular with a cavity washed out from rock salt and containing gas under pressure, the prior art provides devices suffering from the drawback of reducing the flow sections through the tubes in the borehole. The present invention minimizes this section reduction by means of a hollow cylindrical sleeve closed inside by a plug and including ducts formed in its wall in such a manner as to cross over the flows of fluid taking place respectively in a central tube of the borehole and in the annular space between the central tube and a peripheral tube. In one embodiment of the present invention, the sleeve is sandwiched between portions of the central tube and of the peripheral tube, with safety valves advantageously being mounted on the portions of central tube above and below the sleeve.

Abstract: A storage system and method for storing a valuable liquid in a subterranean cavity with a displacing liquid such as brine. The valuable liquid, which normally has a density above or about that of the displacing liquid, is modified by dissolving therein small amounts of a light fluid such as alkanes and alkenes of up to 4 carbon atoms, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon monoxide or combinations thereof. The amount of the light fluid dissolved in the stored liquid is sufficient to maintain the density of this phase below that of the displacing liquid so that the valuable liquid is stored over the displacing liquid.

Abstract: This invention relates to a new and novel method for the underground storage of fluid materials including those which are readily soluable or reactive with water or brine such as concentrated caustic soda, ethylene dichloride or anhydrous ammonia within chambers developed in salt formations via solution mining and from which essentially all the brine has been removed; and the chambers thereby produced. More particularly this invention relates to methods for making underground storage chambers; of recovering the brine formed in the making of the chamber; isolating the contaminants, i.e., the insolubles mixed with brine resulting from the solution mining of the storage chamber, such that fluids soluable or reactive with water or brine can be stored therein; and also to a method for controlling the velocity of free fall of materials injected into the chamber for storage, such that erosion of the equipment employed is minimized.

Abstract: A method for developing, evacuating, using, sealing, and re-entering multiple stacked cavities which are created from a single well in salt deposits. The cavities are created in a salt deposit by circulating raw water through concentric casing strings in the well. Each of the cavities is evacuated of liquids prior to use. After storage material is injected into a cavity, the cavity is sealed by setting a plug in the well bore above the top of the cavity. The cavities may be re-entered by drilling out the plug or by drilling a directional well directly into the cavity.

Abstract: A method and apparatus are disclosed for converting the potential energy stored in an upper reservoir of water into electrical energy, whereby, during periods of high energy demand, water is introduced from the upper reservoir into an underground salt dome by way of an underground shaft which connects the upper reservoir with the underground salt dome. Hydroelectric generators which are located along the shaft convert the kinetic energy of the falling water into electrical energy to meet periodic high energy demands. The water empties into the underground salt dome and dissolves a cavity in the same to produce a large underground reservoir. During periods of electrical energy surplus, electric pumps are utilized to pump the water back to the surface so that the process may be repeated.

Abstract: A salt cavern is leached with fresh water by cementing its surface casing in a hole to the depth of the roof of the cavern to be leached, and inserting coaxial short and long leach strings into the hole, with a petroleum liquid between the surface casing and the outer leach string to protect the roof salt from dissolution when fresh water is run down one of the leach strings and the produced brine out the other. To check the progress of cavern formation, the leach strings are removed to permit unimpeded sonar survey; but before this can be done, the pressures within the surface casing and the short and long leach strings must be neutralized, because the petroleum liquid and fresh water and brine all have different specific gravities and so exert different hydrostatic heads. Moreover, as salt dissolution continues during pressure equalization, the specific gravity of the brine changes, so that pressure equalization can take several days.

Abstract: Disclosed is a method of disposing solid sodium chloride while selectively solution mining potassium chloride from a subterranean deposit containing potassium chloride and sodium chloride. In this novel method an aqueous solvent saturated with respect to sodium chloride, unsaturated with respect to potassium chloride and slurried with solid sodium chloride, is fed into the deposit having a cavity wherein there is face on which rich and lean potassium chloride ore is exposed. Potassium chloride is thereby dissolved while sodium chloride is deposited from the solvent slurry and the resultant solution withdrawn from the cavity enriched in potassium chloride.

Abstract: This is a method to connect two or more drill holes, such as drill holes at distances of 2,000 to 5,000 feet or more apart, for the purpose of producing soluble ores, such as sylvanite or carnallite, from thick, deep ore bodies or from thin, shallow ore bodies. The drill holes are connected utilizing a signal-sending device in an initial drill hole and a sigal-receiving device in a subsequent drill hole. A fluid is injected down one of the holes forcing the effluent from the other hole thus forming a mined-out corridor between the two holes. This procedure can then be repeated with subsequent, offset drill holes.