Underground rock caverns for strategic crude oil storage in India - nature of studies, design and construction

INDIA is home to 17% of the world population, but contain less than 1% of the known oil and gas reserves. It imports about 70% of its oil and gas requirement and this dependence may increase to 90% by 2020 as indicated by the trend in energy usage. Oil and gas are supplied to a great extent by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting countries (OPEC) and the supply from these countries is expected to increase, especially from Saudi Arabia and Iraq, which shall be able to increase production from their new fuel reserves by 2035. The supply of liquid and gas fossil fuels to India is dependent on various geopolitical forces. If the supply is disrupted due to theft by pirates, geopolitical blocks/alignment, shipping accidents, cartel formation by companies, price shocks, wars, political unrest, threat by terrorist attacks, etc. the whole economy is forced to a grinding halt with losses to the tune of billions of rupees and the worst part is that it will take more than six months for the economy to normalize. So, strategic storage of fuels was envisaged by the Government of India to tide over sudden disruption in fuel supply. Strategic storage will also help in price stabilization as fuel can be strategic stocked during low demand and used during high demand. Storage of fuels only in underground unlined rock caverns is currently being implemented in India and locations with the most flexible means of oil and gas transport network have been selected. Storage of fuels in unlined rock caverns is a mature and well-proven technique that was originally developed in Sweden in order to achieve an advanced protection level against various munition attacks 1