A Critical Geological Evaluation of the Hydrogen Storage Potential in the Cousland Gas Field, Midland Valley of Scotland

Abstract

Hydrogen is envisaged to be an important element in the drive to replace hydrocarbons in the energy mix and its geological storage in man-made salt caverns or porous subsurface reservoirs onshore in the United Kingdom is being actively investigated. It has recently been suggested that porous Carboniferous sandstone reservoirs of the partially depleted and abandoned Cousland Field, located c.15 km SE of Edinburgh, could be used for the storage of hydrogen as part of efforts to decarbonise the industrialised and heavily populated central belt of Scotland. The gas field occurs in an onshore surface anticline situated in a culmination along a topographic ridge on the eastern flank of the Midlothian Coalfield. Mapping of outcropping beds led to a well, Cousland-1, being drilled in 1937-39 as part of a national campaign of oil exploration, which discovered natural gas in two thin sands. Despite the initial success, all the subsequent five appraisal wells, drilled between 1939 and 1960, were devoid of commercial hydrocarbons. Despite the disappointing drilling campaign, the field was still developed based on the original Cousland-1 well result and some 0.25 billion standard cubic feet (“scf”) (7.0 million m3) of gas were produced between 1939 and 1965 before the well was plugged and abandoned. This paper draws upon and integrates hitherto unpublished historical records, obtained from the archives of the UK Onshore Geophysical Library, to critically examine the possibility that the Cousland gas field might be re-purposed for hydrogen storage. These studies conclude that it is currently not possible to demonstrate the subsurface configuration, host reservoir distribution or sealing mechanism of the proposed storage container because the information required is not available and may be impossible to obtain. Rather than supporting the case for hydrogen storage, our new evaluation demonstrates that the Cousland field is a poor site that fails to meet the criteria for safe subsurface storage and should not be used for this purpose until and unless the significant challenges can be addressed.