Underground gas storage of Sinopec: Construction status analysis and development proposals

During the gas-peaking months from winter in 2017 to spring in 2018, shortage of gas supply frequently occurred in many regions or provinces in China, which exposes many problems like the slow development of gas storage peak-shaving measures and facilities. As one of the major state-owned energy suppliers, Sinopec will have to accelerate the construction of natural gas storage facilities and explore many ways in improving those facilities' utilization. In view of this, this paper first summarizes the status and characteristics of Sinopec's underground gas storage (UGS), which started late in a small number but developed with advanced technologies and in a great scale. Then, the main challenging issues were pointed out for Sinopec as follows. (1) UGS construction involves such problems as a high cost, a long construction period and being difficult to raise funds. (2) UGS sites are difficult to find and high technical requirements will be necessary for construction. (3) Due to a short history, UGS operation and management experiences are far from enough. (4) For lack of supporting policies, UGS construction process is severely influenced. On this basis, the following proposals were thus presented: to accelerate UGS construction process and improve UGS peak-shaving capacity; to coordinate the relationship between local government and enterprise and do a good job of UGS planning and siting work; to make breakthroughs in UGS key technologies and attach great importance to UGS safety management; to optimize UGS operation efficiency and cut down cost in construction and management; to use flexibly and implement various incentive policies and accelerate UGS development in a commercial way; and to learn lessons and experiences from those developed countries and explore a way for China to implement strategic employment of UGS construction. © 2018, Natural Gas Industry Journal Agency. All right reserved.