Feasibility of underground hydrogen storage with salt caverns in the offshore Polda Basin, South Australia

Geoscience Australia has conducted a feasibility analysis on underground gas/hydrogen storage (UGS/UHS) through creating salt caverns in the offshore Polda Basin, South Australia. The Mercury structure in the offshore part of the Polda Basin has massive halite deposits in the Neoproterozoic Kilroo Formation at depth intervals of 1376.8–2383.8 mSS (mSS: depth (m) below mean sea level) (salt pillows), 2383.8–2538.8 mSS and 2807.8–3083.8 mSS (salt interbeds). The halite is distributed over 217 km<sup>2</sup> approximately 20 km N–S and approximately 20 km E–W, forming an anticlinal structure near the Mercury 1 well. Well data (Mercury 1) suggests the total net thickness of halite is up to 1000 m over the lower Kilroo Formation and 468 m above 2000 mSS, which is within the depth range considered suitable for UHS. The potential storage site analysed is located approximately 50–70 km offshore, west of the Eyre Peninsula and approximately 200 km from Port Lincoln.

The lower thermal gradient (cold basin) observed, and overburden and formation fracture gradients, are favourable for salt cavern design. The 1376.8–1539.8 mSS and 1575.6–2367.6 mSS halite intervals in Mercury 1 were identified as potential candidates for cavern creation in the future UHS program.

A conceptual design of a halite cavern is presented for the depth range of 1650–2000 mSS. The cylindrical halite cavern is evaluated for two diameters (60 m and 100 m) with the calculated hydrogen storage capacity of approximately 240 GWh and 665 GWh (equivalent to approximately 7200 and 20000 tonnes), respectively. Potentially multiple halite caverns could be built within the thick halite deposits of the Mercury structure. Compared to one of Australia’s non-hydrocarbon energy storage resources currently under construction (Snowy 2.0 hydropower) at 350 GWh, UHS within a halite cavern in the offshore Polda Basin provides an alternative for large-scale energy storage that is potentially quicker to build, has less environmental footprints and is not impacted by drought.

The well logs of Mercury 1 have been digitised by Geoscience Australia and are included in the files available for download

Simple

Identification info

Date (Creation)
2022-11-30
Date (Publication)
2023-03-09T05:07:41
Citation identifier
Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/146489

Citation identifier
Digital Object Identifier/https://dx.doi.org/10.26186/146489

Cited responsible party
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Publisher

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice
Author

Wang, L.

 MEG Internal Contact
Author

Rees, S.

 MEG Internal Contact
Author

Carr, L.K.

 External Contact
Author

Feitz, A.J.

 External Contact
Name

Record

Issue identification

RECORD: 2023/005

Purpose

This publication is produced as part of Geoscience Australia's Exploring for the Future program. It is published as one report (pdf).

Status
Completed
Point of contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Point of contact

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice
Point of contact

Wang, L.

 MEG Internal Contact
Resource provider

Minerals, Energy and Groundwater Division

 External Contact
Spatial representation type
Topic category
  • Geoscientific information

Extent

N
S
E
W


Maintenance and update frequency
As needed

Resource format

Title

Product data repository: Various Formats

Protocol

FILE:DATA-DIRECTORY

Name of the resource

Data Store directory containing the digital product files

Description

Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes

theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf

  • EARTH SCIENCES

Place

  • Polda Basin

Theme

  • underground hydrogen storage

Feature type

  • halite cavern

  • Kilroo Formation

  • halite deposit

  • storage capacity

Discipline

  • renewable hydrogen

Project

  • Exploring for the Future

Keywords

  • Published_External

Resource constraints

Title

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence

Alternate title

CC-BY

Edition

4.0

Website

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Addressee
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
User

Any
Use constraints
License
Use constraints
Other restrictions
Other constraints

(c) Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) 2023

Resource constraints

Title

Australian Government Security Classification System

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified
Classification system

Australian Government Security Classification System

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Distribution Information

Distributor contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Distributor

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice
OnLine resource

Download the Record (pdf) [10.4 MB]

Download the Record (pdf) [10.4 MB]

Distribution format

  • pdf

OnLine resource

Download the logs (las) [6.2 MB]

Download the logs (las) [6.2 MB]

Resource lineage

Statement

As part of Geoscience Australia's Exploring for the Future program, Geoscience Australia has conducted a feasibility analysis on underground gas/hydrogen storage (UGS/UHS) through creating salt caverns in the offshore Polda Basin, South Australia. The results are published in one report (pdf).

Metadata constraints

Title

Australian Government Security Classification System

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/600695d6-e8fe-4dfd-8bc7-50f0c441b151

Title

GeoNetwork UUID

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8
Contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Point of contact

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice
Owner

Wang, L

 Internal Contact
Point of contact

Wang, L.

 MEG Internal Contact

Type of resource

Resource scope
Document
Name

GA Record

Alternative metadata reference

Title

Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with uuid

Citation identifier
eCatId/146489

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/600695d6-e8fe-4dfd-8bc7-50f0c441b151

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/dashboard/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/600695d6-e8fe-4dfd-8bc7-50f0c441b151

Date info (Creation)
2025-05-12T06:37:03.988Z
Date info (Creation)
2022-04-13T05:17:35
Date info (Revision)
2025-05-12T06:44:10.506Z

Metadata standard

Title

AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-3

Title

Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014

Edition

Version 2.0, September 2018

Citation identifier
https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551

 
 

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W


Keywords

Exploring for the Future Kilroo Formation halite cavern halite deposit renewable hydrogen storage capacity underground hydrogen storage
theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
EARTH SCIENCES

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