Surface facility design and construction services are an integral part of the total facility package that PB Energy Storage Services provides. The firm’s experience includes over 100 major hydrocarbon storage facility projects, the most extensive being the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The SPR presently includes four salt dome storage sites with a combined capacity of 700 million barrels.
PB also provides regular engineering and construction services for large and small projects alike to a broad client base of facility owners and operators.
Surface facilities for underground storage projects typically include civil/structural works, pump and compressor installations, piping, pipelines, storage tanks, flow measurement systems, electrical and control systems, fire protection and plant utility systems.
A key component in the construction of a solution-mined storage facility is the leach plant. Major features of a typical leach plant include:
- fresh water source pumps and piping
- fresh water injection pumps and piping
- brine collection, storage and treatment system
- brine disposal pumps and piping
- electrical power distribution systems
- instrumentation, control and measurement systems
- plant infrastructure systems
The scope of surface facilities design and construction often includes the systems and equipment necessary to transport the stored fluid to and from the storage site, e.g.:
- cross-country pipelines for water, brine, oil or gas
- pipeline pump and compressor stations
- flow measurement and control stations
- gas processing facilities
- on-site systems to receive, inject, withdraw and deliver stored fluids.
One typical project involved injection of 150 MMscfd into and withdrawal 300 MMscfd from two gas storage caverns. This project included the design and installation of a 6-unit compressor station totaling 16,000 hp.
Another recent project involved the design and construction of an 8200 hp compression/dehydration station to inject 110 MMscfd of natural gas into two storage caverns and to withdraw 220 MMscfd for pipeline delivery.
PB Energy Storage Services’ surface facility capabilities are often applied to projects which do not involve underground storage. One such unique undertaking was the relocation of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet fueling facility in California. This job involved the design and construction supervision for facilities to store and distribute marine and aviation fuels to navy vessels and tankers. The project included pipelines with ship channel crossings, a tank farm complete with product recovery and ballast treatment systems and a marine fueling terminal with all related systems and equipment.