EXPLOITING CAVERNOUS CAPACITY

Easton Energy CEO Joel McComas tells Tank Storage Magazine about salt caverns and oil storage in Texas HYDROCARBON storage comes in all kinds of shapes and sizes – huge tanks, small tanks, in barrels, on ships, even in railway wagons and pipelines in recent months – but one of the biggest by capacity is in underground salt caverns. Underground salt caverns are created through a process called solution mining, where a well is drilled in a salt deposit and water pumped into the salt deposit to dissolve the salt and create brine, which is used in a variety of industrial processes including steel quenching and in the chloralkali process to produce sodium and chlorine. The caverns left behind are ideal for hydrocarbon storage, being large, secure, and unlike other storage options, obviously, leaks and corrosion are not really a concern. One company that specialises in cavern storage is Easton Energy, based in Houston, Texas. Easton is the exclusive natural gas liquids (NGL), olefin and crude oil storage developer at Texas Brine Company’s salt caverns in Markham in southeast Texas. Easton CEO Joel McComas explains that the Markham salt dome has been used to store olefins and...