Underground Storage Solutions
To ensure safe and reliable Hydrogen storage, large-scale solutions must be developed. Salt caverns are one such geological formation that might provide ample storage possibilities for hydrogen. Currently used for natural gas, salt caverns offer excellent sealability of the salt structure, together with efficiency, low operating costs, and significant economies of scale.
- Sour service expertise and Oil Country Tubular Goods (OCTG) applications to help customers optimize tubing sealability to explore further salt cavern development for hydrogen. We are already supplying tubings for several pilot wells.
- A wide range of steel grades suitable for severe sour service environments, which offer good resistance to hydrogen embrittlement.
- A wide range of VAM® connections that provide tight sealability and thus safe hydrogen storage.
- Weldable grades for optimized weldability performance that are also qualified for sour service.
Hydrogen’s physical properties make the development of robust infrastructure complex. Vallourec’s materials expertise is proving invaluable in developing the necessary solutions.
Important physical properties of hydrogen
All these technical challenges will certainly find appropriate responses. Vallourec will contribute to these, so that the required infrastructure can be safely developed. In this way, the full potential of hydrogen as a low-carbon technology can be unleashed.
News – Large-scale hydrogen for a cleaner tomorrow
Dec. 2020 | by Vincent Designolle
From solar and wind to biomass, the number of cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels has exploded in recent years. But one clearly stands out from the pack: hydrogen. Already well established in industrial uses, hydrogen is now angling to conquer hard-to-decarbonize sectors like heavy transport and energy-intensive industries. To ensure success, infrastructure at a large scale will be needed to support hydrogen’s growth—a gargantuan undertaking that Vallourec is well placed to support.
