ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Earth Sci.
Sec. Structural Geology and Tectonics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feart.2025.1650076
The impact of Multi-Cycle Water Invasion on Underground Gas Storages and its Controlling Factors
Provisionally accepted
Wei Liao1Shijie Zhang1Mingyang Lv2,3*Yifeng Zhao1Huilin Yan2,3Guoliang Shi2,3
Mohammad Nooraiepour4
Lin Ma5Mikhail Spasennykh6
Zezhang Song2,3*- 1Xinjiang Oilfield Company, Karamay, China
- 2China University of Petroleum Beijing State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resources and Engineering, Beijing, China
- 3College of Geosciences, China University of Petroleum, Beijing, China
- 4Universitetet i Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- 5The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
- 6Skolkovskij institut nauki i tehnologij, Moscow, Russia
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Underground gas storage (UGS) facilities are essential for supply security and peak-shaving in natural gas systems, yet their sustainability is limited by an incomplete understanding of water invasion. This study examines the Hutubi UGS, the largest facility in China and the first serving the West-East Gas Pipeline II, to identify the controls of water invasion under intensive injection-withdrawal cycles. Using geological data from the second member of the Ziniquanzi Formation and multi-cycle injection-withdrawal records, we combined three-dimensional geological modeling with numerical simulation to assess aquifer energy and invasion pathways. The reservoir functions as a weak water-drive system with limited aquifer support. Water invasion is stratified and directional: high-permeability channels promote preferential migration in the western E1–2z21 sub-reservoir, while localized bottom-water coning dominates in the E1–2z22 sub-reservoir. Six factors act in concert to govern invasion: aquifer energy, structural boundaries, sedimentary facies, reservoir heterogeneity, physical properties, and pore structure. Together, they define a coupled mechanism that shapes the magnitude and spatial distribution of water invasion. This framework advances understanding of invasion dynamics in UGS and offers practical guidance for enhancing the long-term efficiency and sustainability of natural gas storage.
Keywords: Underground gas storages1, Aquifer Energy2, Water Invasion Patterns3, geological modeling4, numerical simulation5
Received: 04 Jul 2025; Accepted: 01 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liao, Zhang, Lv, Zhao, Yan, Shi, Nooraiepour, Ma, Spasennykh and Song. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mingyang Lv, China University of Petroleum Beijing State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Resources and Engineering, Beijing, China
Zezhang Song, College of Geosciences, China University of Petroleum, Beijing, China
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