The Department of the Development of Mining and Underground Storage Facilities is the lead Department of The Research and Development Centre for Mining of Chemical Raw Materials “CHEMKOP” Ltd. It concentrates mainly on research, design, and consulting services offered to salt, as well as salt-based refinery and chemical industries, and natural-gas industry and businesses, providing development, improvement, and implementation of new technologies and new system applications, as regards water-soluble minerals.
The thematic scope of our services concerns primarily underground storage projects for natural gas and other gases and liquid hydrocarbons in salt caverns, leaching and mining of salt and other soluble evaporites, drilling, specialist software packages, geology, hydrogeology, geomechanics, and physical and chemical testing of rocks.
We have also implemented research and development works on underground hydrogen storage, as a method of storing energy generated from renewable resources.
We carry out chemical testing of rocks for the needs of various leaching projects involving mineral deposits, including salts. In particular, we determine leachability of salt rocks, test new leaching technologies in our laboratory, using physical models, with classical geomechanical and geological testing of salt samples collected from documented or currently mined deposits, using leaching or traditional methods. Research on models concern backfill materials for hydraulic backfilling of excavation voids, as well as leaching acid applied in salt deposits, together with the construction of physical models produced with evaporite materials.
Based on our broad and long-term experience, demonstrated by our highly qualified personnel, representing unique competences, we are able to offer ever expanding process knowledge to our customers and partners, as regards all aspects of underground storage and deposition of substances and materials within salt deposits and general salt mining.
Our Department can ensure preparation and implementation of relevant capital investment projects, starting from research and continuing through a feasibility study, design, drafting of concession application documentation, as well as geological, hydrogeological documentation, with the provision of supervision services for the project development and start-up (in respect of the underground project sections).