Modelling of Underground Natural Gas Storage Openings in the Basin of Tuz Gölü Lake with FEM

Abstract

The need to energy is increasing in the world with the increasing of industrialization day by day. In this context there is a growing need for energy obtained from natural gas. In Turkey, parallel to the world the demand for natural gas is also increasing. Annual natural gas consumption in Turkey is about 50 billion cubic meters. Distribution of Turkey's natural gas consumption according to usage areas is as follows; 53% in electrical energy, 25% in industry, 22% in residential use. These demands rates are varying according to different times of the year. Moreover, due to political crisis, differences in the gas flow may occur. It is possible to become inadequate to meet immediate demand for these differences. Creation of underground natural gas storage is considered as a solution to eliminate this risk. While, the world storage volume is 380.4 billion cubic meters, Turkey has one store with 2.6 billion cubic meters capacity. It is also planned for storage capacity as 10% of the demand in Turkey. In this study, the stress around natural gas storage underground openings, designed by BOTAŞ in the Basin of Tuz Gölü Lake, and the resulting deformation were investigated. For this purpose, Rocscience RS2 (Phase2) using finite element analysis was performed. Analysis were carried out for a single opening and also multiple neighbor caverns. Working gas pressures are suggested for each modelled situations