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A senior Iranian gas industry official says the country is planning to build an underground natural gas storage facility in salt domes near the central city of Kashan, which will be the first of its kind in the Middle East.
Massoud Samivand, managing director of Natural Gas Storage Company (NGSC), said Saturday that studies on storing natural gas in the new reservoir located in salt domes of Nasrabad region near Kashan have already started.
The official added that based on early studies, the new reservoir will be able to contain 3-4.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
Samivand said various types of geological studies on the reservoir have been finished and the implementation of the first phase of the plan will begin in the near future.
He went on to say that drilling the first reservoir well will begin in late May.
“Drilling one or two new wells will pave the way for storing natural gas in salty pits of Nasrabad reservoir,” he added.
On April 27, Samivand said two natural gas storage facilities will become operational in the current Iranian calendar year (started March 20, 2012) to store natural gas equal to six phases of the South Pars gas field.
The official added that depleted hydrocarbon or ground water reservoirs as well as salt domes are priorities for building underground gas storage facilities.
He stated that the country’s natural gas storage capacity should hit 14 billion cubic meters by the end of the Fifth Economic Development Plan (2015).
Samivand announced that the construction of three underground gas storage facilities is simultaneously going on in Sarajeh region of Qom Province, Yortsha region near the city of Varamin, and Shourijeh region in Khorasan Province.
He said the three new stores will be able to contain eight billion cubic meters of natural gas per year.
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