September 2008
Features
Cementing across salt formations
The US Gulf Coast contains the largest known deposits of salt in the world, Fig. 1.1 Almost 60% of these salt zones remain unexplored. The areas that have been explored in the Gulf of Mexico range from the Ewing Banks area to the Mississippi Canyon area, Fig. 2.2 There are also more than 400 underground salt storage caverns in 27 states and Canada with a capacity to hold over 3 Tcf of gas, Figs. 3 and 4.3,4 The importance of these salt structures and the potential they represent to future oil production and gas storage have become very significant with declining oil reserves. An article describing sub-salt exploration in the GOM explains the industry attention focused on sub-salt formations: “For 45 years, exploration and development drilling in the Gulf of Mexico stopped when salt was encountered at objective depths.
