Salt deposits from the Jurassic period conceal gas storage in Kaliningrad

Sweco’s Russian company, Lenvodokanalproekt, is currently working on several assignments for Gazprom, which, among other things, supplies gas from Jamal in northern Russia to several European countries.

“Gazprom was looking for storage stations in Russia for its gas,” says Juriy Puzirev, who is a project manager for Lenvodokanalproekt. “The best storage stations turned out to be salt deposits from the Jurassic period that are located under Kaliningrad. The salt deposits were formed when the ocean receded after the dinosaurs died out. The salt is used to make bath salts today.”

Lenvodokanalproekt is using advanced technology to create cavities in the salt deposits, about a kilometre underground. The cavities will be about 80 square metres in diameter, and it takes about a year to create one. Twenty cavities will be produced.

“We create them by first drilling two holes down to a certain depth, and then pumping sea water into one of them. The salt content in the Baltic Sea is 7.5 grams per litre. When we checked the water’s salt content when it came up again, we realized that it was too salty to release into the ocean again. Salt content was 300 grams per litre. That’s why we created a process where we add salt water in stages until the water’s salt content is 10 g/litre when released into the ocean again.”
Juriy believes that the greatest challenge for the project has been to minimize the effect on the environment. Thus, International Oceans Institute has been involved in the project and mediated between stakeholders. After a year of discussions, the assignment is on course and the pumping station is working.

“It is nice knowing that the impact on the environment is not excessive since we are basically pumping out as much salt as we are pumping in. The Baltic Sea’s salt content is 5-15 per cent; the other major oceans have a salt content of 25-30 per cent. This will not impact the Baltic Sea to any great extent.

The assignment will involve 15-20 people from four different departments over the next 20 years at Lenvodokanalproekt and bring in 40 million roubles.