Kevin Privett. Underground gas storage and the Portland landslide complex

An oil and gas company had proposed an underground natural gas storage facility in salt deposits 2.4 km beneath the Isle of Portland in Dorset and had bought a lease for land at a former naval shore base. Unfortunately, the site was in the middle of a large landslide complex, said to be one of the most active in the UK. In order to obtain Planning Permission and to inform the Safety Case and, therefore,
the engineering design it was necessary to understand the nature of the slip movement. It is never possible to prove that something will NOT happen, so a multiple lines of evidence approach was adopted to better understand the geotechnical risks. The talk discusses the evidence accumulated to obtain regulatory approval for the proposed facility.