sansmic#
The sansmic leaching simulator#
sansmic is a package for the simulation of leaching in underground salt caverns. The core is written in C++ for speed, but the primary API and the command-line program are Python-based. Lower case sansmic is used to differentiate it from the previous, FORTRAN-based versions of the same name.
Solution mining is the process of disolving underground mineral deposits by pumping fresh, or at least unsaturated, water down a well, allowing it to leach the minerals into solution, and then pumping the solution back to the surface. Solution mining is also used to create underground caverns – typically in salt deposits – that are then used for energy storage; typically this is through storage of natural gas or crude oil, but hydrogen storage is beginning to gain momentum.
SANSMIC was developed in the early 1980s to fill a specific modeling need for the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) that could not be met using the tools available at the time. That specific need was to model the injection of both raw water, for cavern leaching, and crude oil simultaneously in a process referred to as “leach/fill”. SANSMIC has primarily been used at the SPR for modeling impacts due to emergency exchanges, sales, remediations, and the original construction.