The US oil and gas services firm referenced a multi-year Dutch pilot project, where an existing 1,290 metre gas well and a small leached salt cavern were used to run hydrogen storage tests in real-world conditions.

In the whitepaper, hosted on h2-view.com, Halliburton said the programme unfolded in two phases: a mechanical integrity test using nitrogen and hydrogen; and a months-long storage run to verify the readiness of equipment and operations.

The trial found standard completion components commonly used in oil, gas, and underground methane storage operated as intended in a pure hydrogen environment.

Over 11 months of hydrogen exposure at up to 200 bar and 42ºC, a tubing-retrievable safety valve was cycled over 75 times without leaks.

The project team also found no evidence of hydrogen embrittlement to standardised coupons of different alloys, weldments and coatings, as well as non-metallics that were deployed into the storage chamber.

“The pilot project demonstrated the feasibility of underground pure hydrogen storage with current field-proven technology lifted from the oil and gas industry,” the paper stated.

However, the paper notes that further work should examine plastic stress, dynamic strain, cyclic loading, and impurities to validate the long-term suitability of specific alloys and elastomers.

The findings provide some of the first real-world performance data for hydrogen storage in salt caverns, a critical step as the Netherlands and other countries develop standards and scale up infrastructure to balance fluctuating supply and demand.

You can access the full whitepaper here.