The Conference Announcement is now available for the SMRI Spring 2025 Conference in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, taking place April 27-30, 2025, and contains information about technical presentations, field trips, and other aspects of the event. Event details can also be viewed on this page below the registration section.

Conference Registration

In-Person Registration

Registration for the Wilhelmshaven Conference will open for members on February 12, 2025 and on March 12, 2025 for Non-Members. Registration will end on April 2nd; any late registrations are subject to a $250 fee, subject to space availability. Please contact Dawn ([email protected]) or Rachel Cunningham ([email protected]) regarding any questions about registration. You must be logged in to the database to register for the event.

 Virtual Registration

 SMRI will once again welcome members and non-members to register for the Spring 2025 Virtual Conference to be streamed live from Wilhelmshaven on Monday, 28 April and Tuesday, 29 April. Virtual attendees will receive information regarding the hosting platform approximately one week prior to the conference. The Technical Session presentations will be recorded during the live conference and available on the virtual conference platform for viewing for 30 days after the Conference.

 The optional Technical Class "Solution Mining" will be streamed as a virtual component to the conference and attendees will participate in the class through the same platform as the Technical Sessions. The class will be streamed live only and not available for on-demand viewing following the completion of the conference.

 Conference Information

 Technical Class: Solution Mining

The Technical Class, typically held on Sunday prior to the Technical Session, is designed to be an introductory course or refresher course for the variety of disciplines and management levels that work in the solution mining environment and with solution mined caverns. Solution Mining was chosen as the topic for the Technical Class for Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 based on a survey by SMRI leadership to members. The schedule for this class will be released in the coming weeks.\

The SMRI has continued to be a leader in solution mining concepts with many research projects and technical presentations over the past 50 years. To outline this historical knowledge and provide further insight into these concepts, the SMRI has proposed a tentative list of topics for the Technical Class including:

     • Theories regarding leaching and modeling
     • Geological impacts on control of mining/developing a leaching concept
     • Mining of non-halite materials
     • Well hydraulics, hanging string design, and flow rates
     • Overview of simulation software (SALGAS, SANSMIC, UBRO4, and others)
     • Various case studies

The SMRI does include in the schedule of the Technical Class sufficient time for questions and open discussion during the sessions. Additionally, the structure of the session breaks and lunch breaks are great opportunities to continue the discussion with cavern peers.

 

Monday Night Networking Event

On Monday, April 28, guests take a barge to visit the German Marine Museum starting at 5:45pm.  There will be extensive exhibits with signs in both German and English. See the destroyer "Molders," the speedboat "Gephard," the submarine "U10," and the mine hunting vessel "Weilheim."

After the museum visit, guests will walk 350 meters to LaPatron for a European buffet.  Barge passage to the museum will begin at 5:45pm.  Following the museum visit, dinner will begin at 8:15pm, ending at 10:30pm.  Buses will take guests back to the hotel. Cost is $100 per person.

Field Trips

Trips will take place on Wednesday 25 September, both will be available in English.

Field Trip 1
NWKG Oil Storage Facility and Wilhelmshaven Boat Cruise
Nord-West Kavernengesellschaft mbH (NWKG) based Wilhelmshaven is one of the largest cavern operators in Europe storing around 15 million cubic meters of crude oil and mineral oil products for the Petroleum Stockpiling Association. NWKG operates further cavern locations at Bremen-Lesum, Sottorf near Hamburg and Heide. Under the background of decarbonization and change of the energy system NWKG is actively working on the preparation of conversion of their storage sites for a future hydrogen storage.

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The site program will inculde a guided tour at the NWKG premises and the presentation of technical aspects developed for the site (e.g. oil/hydrogen wellheads, cavern simulator tour and virtual 3D geological tour). A BBQ will be served for lunch at the NWGK site. 

In the afternoon there will be a boat tour starting from Hooksiel along the coast at Wilhelmshaven. The boat will be passing the Floating Storage & Regasification Unit (FSRU), a power plant, the oil and the Navy ports. The final destination of the cruise is the Atlantic Hotel.

The maximum capacity for this trip is 50, so register early. The $35.00 cost is all-inclusive of transportation to/from the hotel, the guided tours, and lunch. The field trip time is anticipated to be 8AM - 4PM.

 

 

Field Trip 2
Oil and Gas Storage Facility Storag Etzel, Friedeburg
This trip program will include a presentation about the facilities and a guided tour at the STORAG premises. Lunch will be provided at the STORAG site.

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STORAG ETZEL GmbH is the largest independent provider of cavern storage in Germany. The company is building, maintaining, and leasing underground storage capacity for gas and oil at the Etzel site since 1971. Currently, around 3.9 billion cubic meters of gas are stored in 51 caverns and over 10 million cubic meters of crude oil can be stored in a further 24 caverns. STORAG is working on the preparation of the site for potential future hydrogen storage as part of the H2CAST project.

The maximum capacity for this trip is 50, so register early. The $35.00 cost is all-inclusive of transportation to/from the hotel, the guided tours, and lunch. The field trip time is anticipated to be 8AM - 4PM.

 

 

Field Trip 3
EWE Gas Storage Facility Huntorf and Uniper CAES Plant Neuenhuntorf
The site program will include presentations about the facilities and guided tours. Lunch will be provided between the both visits in a nearby restaurant.

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EWE GASSPEICHER GmbH is one of the largest storage operators in the Germany and Europe. A capacity of around 2 billion cubic meters of working gas is stored at four facilities in Huntorf, Nüttermoor, Jemgum and Rüdersdorf. Part of the the field trip will be a visit of the cavern storage facility at Huntorf where EWE is operating 7 gas storage caverns. EWE is planning to convert one cavern for hydrogen storage in the next years. The Huntorf power plant is a combined compressed air energy storage and gas turbine power plant operated by Uniper Kraftwerke. When it was commissioned in 1978, the power plant was the first commercially used compressed air energy storage in the world. The compressed air for operation of the power plant is stored in 2 nearby salt caverns.

The maximum capacity for this trip is 30, so register early. The $85.00 cost is all-inclusive of transportation to/from the hotel, the guided tours, and lunch. The field trip time is anticipated to be 8AM - 4PM. 



Travel Information

The Conference will be held at the Atlantic Hotel Wilhelmshaven located at Jadeallee 50, 26382 Wilhelmshaven, Germany. Please access the booking link here  Each SMRI participant is responsible to book their own hotel reservations.

Space is limited at the Atlantic and SMRI has an over room block at the B&B hotel. To book a room at this overflow hotel please call the hotel at +49 (0)4421 / 7557920 and mention SMRI’s Group Code 882442. You may also email the hotel at [email protected] for assistance. This block is only available until 1 March 2025.

Wilhelmshaven's closest airport is the Bremen Airport (BRE) located 61 miles from the Atlantic Hotel. 
Bremen Hbf (train station) is less than 10 minutes from BRE by car, with travel time of approximately 1.5 hours to Wilhelmshaven.

SMRI thanks our sponsors of the Spring 2025 Wilhelmshaven Conference:

Hometown Hero Sponsor: NWKG

Ice Breaker Bar Sponsors: DEEP.KBB GmbH | Hartmann Valves & Wellheads | SOCON Sonar Control Kavernenvermessung GmbH

Diamond Sponsors: Empire Wireline, LLC | Sonic Surveys | Storag Etzel GmbH | Uniper Energy Storage GmbH

Platinum Sponsors: AtkinsRéalis

Gold Sponsors: DEEP.KBB GmbH | ESK GmbH | FLODIM | Hartmann Valves & Wellheads | Lane Power & Energy Solutions | Lonquist & Co. LLC | Texas Brine Company, LLC | WSP USA

Silver Sponsors: Cavern Solutions, Inc. | Micon-Drilling | Sabine Storage & Operations, Inc. | RESPEC, Inc. 

Bronze Sponsors: Agapito Associates, Inc. | Alpha Geological Services, D.P.C. | SaltPower | Seal-Tite International | SOCON Sonar Control Kavernenvermessung GmbH | Strata, LLC

App Sponsor:  Tiberius Energy Services

If you are interested in becoming a Sponsor for the SMRI Spring 2025 Wilhelmshaven Conference, please take a look at our Sponsorship information, or access the 2025 Sponsor Application form.