Gas Liquids Engineering Ltd. (GLE) provided civil, mechanical and electrical engineering design and construction support to expand Plains Midstream’s cavern storage capacity for natural gas liquids (NGLs) by drilling and washing a 32,000 m³ (200,000 bbl) cavern at the Kerrobert site located in Southwest Saskatchewan. The new cavern (Cavern 5) was created by drilling down to a salt formation and dissolving or washing the underground salt formation with fresh water. Cavern 5 increased the capacity of the Kerrobert site to inject NGLs into the Enbridge Pipeline for delivery to Sarnia, Ontario where the NGLs are fractionated into specification products and marketed in Eastern Canada and USA.
The scope of the project included drilling and washing the cavern and expanding the surface facilities and support infrastructure. The drilling and washing of Cavern 5 was completed by another contractor. The design features of the surface facilities included:
- Civil work to prepare a pad for drilling the cavern and lease and roadway improvements
- Eight (8) pumps for a total of 1000 hp in fresh water and brine disposal service
- Approximately 8.4 km of pipe to deliver brine to disposal wells
- A pump building
- 480 V MCC and 1 MVa power transformer
- A new instrument air drying system
- Metering systems for NGL deliveries and brine injections
- Piping to connect the Cavern 5 to existing infrastructure
The 2 year project was completed on time and on budget.
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