UPSTREAM EP ADVISORS
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UIC Well Permitting
CLASS - III Well (Solution Mining)
If you plans to inject, store and withdraw hydrogen from underground storage caverns constructed in a tectonically thickened salt body at depths greater than 3,000 feet below the surface. The construction of these caverns is permitted by ACES I’s solution mining UIC Class III Permit UTU-27AP-718D759.
The storage caverns are created by solution mining with fresh water under the UIC Class III Permit which limits cavern capacity by imposing strict cavern diameter to pillar width (salt mass between caverns) ratios and standoff distances to the edge of the salt formation itself. Brine created by the solution mining process is stored in nearby surface solar evaporation ponds which are regulated by Ground Water Discharge Permit UGW270010. The completed caverns are then used to store and recover gaseous hydrogen by injection and recovery under pressure as regulated by this UIC Class V permit
CLASS - V Well (Experimental)
The basis for issuing the UIC Class V permit for hydrogen storage is to ensure compliance with the state UIC administrative rules for Class V injection well activities, R317-7.
Praxairs’ Underground Gas Storage Facility, Hydrogen Storage Lease, Well No. 1, Moss Bluff Field, Liberty County Texas is the most current and operational salt cavern hydrogen storage facility existing in the nation has developed a methodology for the monitoring of wells and caverns which were used to inform the development of the permit conditions where they apply to the injection and recovery of pressurized hydrogen in solution mined salt caverns. These state-of-the-art methodologies have been required in the Permit to ensure well and cavern integrity and stability and protection of USDWs.