UNDERWATER RESERVOIR FOR LIQUID STORAGE AND METHOD FOR UNDERWATER LIQUID STORAGE Russian patent published in 2023 - IPC B65D88/78 

FIELD: oil production.

SUBSTANCE: method for underwater storage of hydrocarbon liquids or other liquid medium and its underwater storage. The inventions can be used for the accumulation and temporary storage under water at any depth of liquid hydrocarbons (oil, condensate, etc.), water or a gas-liquid mixture (oil/condensate with dissolved gas and water) without separation media (sea water or inert gases) under hydrostatic water column pressure. An underwater liquid storage tank, including a support frame and a storage module. In this case, the support frame is designed to be placed at the bottom of the reservoir and contains guides for placing and fastening the storage module above it. The storage module can be made spherical and contains a liquid-permeable carrier shell, the lower part of which has perforation. Inside the supporting shell there are upper and elastic lower membranes with the possibility of forming a cavity between them to accommodate a liquid medium. The upper part of the supporting shell includes a means for supplying and pumping out a liquid medium into the cavity between the upper and elastic lower membranes, combined with a hole in the upper membrane. The upper membrane is located along the upper part of the supporting shell and is motionless relative to it when pumping and injecting a liquid medium into the cavity between the upper and elastic lower membranes. The elastic lower membrane is configured to move towards the perforation on the lower part of the supporting shell when a liquid medium is supplied into the cavity between the upper and elastic lower membranes through an opening in the upper membrane, displacing water from the space formed between the elastic lower membrane and the perforated lower part of the supporting shell, due to interaction with water of the lower surface of the elastic lower membrane and movement to the upper membrane and the upper part of the supporting shell when pumping a liquid medium from the cavity between the upper and elastic lower membranes through a hole in the upper membrane under the influence of the pressure of displacing water entering the space formed between the elastic lower membrane and perforated lower part of the supporting shell.

EFFECT: simplifying the design of the reservoir and reducing the number of process operations required for storing a liquid medium, due to the storage of liquid media, including hydrocarbons, without the use of additional separation media, for example, inert gas, by creating a buffer pressure at the outlet of the reservoir without using underwater booster pumps, as well as by increasing the degree of tank emptying without the use of additional structural means.

5 cl, 5 dwg