Abstract
Initial studies in the occurrence of hydrogen sulfide in gas storage and production facilities have been completed. Season-long surveys of water chemistry, bacteriological populations, water and gas production along with a review of treatment and operational parameters has shown that bacteria could be implicated in the production of H2S in gas storage facilities. The motion of the water in and out of the field during injection and production, has been implicated in supplying indigenous microbes the necessary nutrients for continued growth and production of hydrogen sulfide. Analysis of data from a storage field in Iowa has shown that traditional statistical applications do little to describe any cause and effect relationship between water chemistry and microbial activity. Additional studies have shown that graphic representation of the time and space relationships serve to demonstrate possible causes of sulfide production much more readily than statistical applications. Unlike storage fields, gas production fields are not as amenable to study: Sporadic water production results in the omission of data points and critical chemical and microbiological data that would assist in either statistical or graphical analysis of the data. It is difficult, therefore, to draw conclusions regarding the possible cause(s) of H2S production in production fields.
