Impact of faults and compartmentalisation on geological carbon storage estimates in highly faulted basins

2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 789
Author(s):  
Jorik W. Poesse ◽  
Ludovic P. Ricard ◽  
Allison Hortle
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Storage ◽  
Storage Capacity ◽  
Co2 Storage ◽  
Fault Reactivation ◽  
Hydrocarbon Exploration ◽  
Co2 Injection ◽  
Exploration And Production ◽  
Order Of Magnitude ◽  
Fault Permeability ◽  
The Impact

Faults have extensively been studied for hydrocarbon exploration and production; however, previous studies on fault behaviour for geological carbon storage have focused on sealing capacity or reactivation potential during injection or post-injection phases. Little is known on the impact of faults for estimating storage capacity in highly faulted basins. A geological conceptual model of a representative compartment was designed to identify the key drivers of storage capacity estimates in highly faulted basins. An uncertainty quantification framework was then designed upon this model to address the impact of geological uncertainties such as fault permeability, reservoir injectivity, compartment geometry and closure on the compartment storage capacity. Pressure-limited storage capacity was estimated from numerical simulation of CO2 injection under the constraints of maximum bottom hole pressure and fault reactivation pressure. Interpretation of the simulation results highlights that (1) two injection regimes are observed: borehole- or fault-controlled, (2) storage capacity can vary more than an order of magnitude, (3) fault and reservoir permeability can be regarded as the most influential properties with respect to storage capacity, (4) compartment geometry mainly influences the injection regime controlling the storage capacity and (5) the large sensitivity of storage capacity to the type of enclosure and fault permeability indicates that pressure build-up at the fault is often the deciding factor for CO2 storage capacity.

scholarly journals Modelling of CO2 Injection in Fluvial Sedimentary Heterogeneous Reservoirs to Assess the Impact of Geological Heterogeneities on CO2 Storage Capacity and Performance

2013 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 5181-5190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benoît Issautier ◽  
Simon Fillacier ◽  
Yann Le Gallo ◽  
Pascal Audigane ◽  
Christophe Chiaberge ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Storage Capacity ◽  
Co2 Storage ◽  
Co2 Injection ◽  
Heterogeneous Reservoirs ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Impact

Effect of the number of water alternating CO2 injection cycles on CO2 trapping capacity

2019 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emad A. Al-Khdheeawi ◽  
Stephanie Vialle ◽  
Ahmed Barifcani ◽  
Mohammad Sarmadivaleh ◽  
Stefan Iglauer
Keyword(s):  
Storage Capacity ◽  
Co2 Storage ◽  
Storage Period ◽  
Co2 Injection ◽  
Co2 Leakage ◽  
Storage Efficiency ◽  
Reservoir Model ◽  
Plume Migration ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Injection Cycle

The CO2 storage capacity is greatly affected by CO2 injection scenario – i.e. water alternating CO2 (WACO2) injection, intermittent injection, and continuous CO2 injection – and WACO2 injection strongly improves the CO2 trapping capacity. However, the impact of the number of WACO2 injection cycles on CO2 trapping capacity is not clearly understood. Thus, we developed a 3D reservoir model to simulate WACO2 injection in deep reservoirs testing different numbers of WACO2 injection cycles (i.e. one, two, and three), and the associated CO2 trapping capacity and CO2 plume migration were predicted. For all different WACO2 injection cycle scenarios, 5000 kton of CO2 and 5000 kton of water were injected at a depth of 2275m and 2125m respectively, during a 10-year injection period. Then, a 100-year CO2 storage period was simulated. Our simulation results clearly showed, after 100 years of storage, that the number of WACO2 cycles affected the vertical CO2 leakage and the capacity of trapped CO2. The results showed that increasing the number of WACO2 cycles decreased the vertical CO2 leakage. Furthermore, a higher number of WACO2 cycles increased residual trapping, and reduced solubility trapping. Thus, the number of WACO2 cycles significantly affected CO2 storage efficiency, and higher numbers of WACO2 cycles improved CO2 storage capacity.

scholarly journals The impact of boundary conditions on CO2 storage capacity estimation in aquifers

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 4828-4834 ◽  
Author(s):  
D.J. Smith ◽  
D.J. Noy ◽  
S. Holloway ◽  
R.A. Chadwick
Keyword(s):  
Boundary Conditions ◽  
Storage Capacity ◽  
Co2 Storage ◽  
Capacity Estimation ◽  
The Impact

scholarly journals Numerical Simulation and Optimization of CO2 Sequestration in Saline Aquifers

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zheming Zhang ◽  
Ramesh Agarwal
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Simulation ◽  
Co2 Sequestration ◽  
Storage Capacity ◽  
Co2 Storage ◽  
Injection Well ◽  
Co2 Injection ◽  
Great Promise ◽  
Saline Aquifer ◽  
Simulation And Optimization ◽  
Co2 Plume

With recent concerns on CO2 emissions from coal fired electricity generation plants; there has been major emphasis on the development of safe and economical Carbon Dioxide Capture and Sequestration (CCS) technology worldwide. Saline reservoirs are attractive geological sites for CO2 sequestration because of their huge capacity for sequestration. Over the last decade, numerical simulation codes have been developed in U.S, Europe and Japan to determine a priori the CO2 storage capacity of a saline aquifer and provide risk assessment with reasonable confidence before the actual deployment of CO2 sequestration can proceed with enormous investment. In U.S, TOUGH2 numerical simulator has been widely used for this purpose. However at present it does not have the capability to determine optimal parameters such as injection rate, injection pressure, injection depth for vertical and horizontal wells etc. for optimization of the CO2 storage capacity and for minimizing the leakage potential by confining the plume migration. This paper describes the development of a “Genetic Algorithm (GA)” based optimizer for TOUGH2 that can be used by the industry with good confidence to optimize the CO2 storage capacity in a saline aquifer of interest. This new code including the TOUGH2 and the GA optimizer is designated as “GATOUGH2”. It has been validated by conducting simulations of three widely used benchmark problems by the CCS researchers worldwide: (a) Study of CO2 plume evolution and leakage through an abandoned well, (b) Study of enhanced CH4 recovery in combination with CO2 storage in depleted gas reservoirs, and (c) Study of CO2 injection into a heterogeneous geological formation. Our results of these simulations are in excellent agreement with those of other researchers obtained with different codes. The validated code has been employed to optimize the proposed water-alternating-gas (WAG) injection scheme for (a) a vertical CO2 injection well and (b) a horizontal CO2 injection well, for optimizing the CO2 sequestration capacity of an aquifer. These optimized calculations are compared with the brute force nearly optimized results obtained by performing a large number of calculations. These comparisons demonstrate the significant efficiency and accuracy of GATOUGH2 as an optimizer for TOUGH2. This capability holds a great promise in studying a host of other problems in CO2 sequestration such as how to optimally accelerate the capillary trapping, accelerate the dissolution of CO2 in water or brine, and immobilize the CO2 plume.

Understanding the Flow Dynamics of CO2 Plumes in the Subsurface

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florence Letitia Bebb ◽  
Kate Clare Serena Evans ◽  
Jagannath Mukherjee ◽  
Bilal Saeed ◽  
Geovani Christopher
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Capture ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Co2 Storage ◽  
Flow Dynamics ◽  
Hydrocarbon Exploration ◽  
Hydrocarbon Reservoir ◽  
Exploration And Production ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Co2 ◽  
Hydrocarbon Exploration And Production

Abstract There are several significant differences between the behavior of injected CO2 and reservoired hydrocarbons in the subsurface. These fundamental differences greatly influence the modeling of CO2 plumes. Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is growing in importance in the exploration and production (E&P) regulatory environment with the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) making CCUS a priority. Companies need to prospect for storage sites and evaluate both the short-term risks and long-term fate of stored carbon dioxide (CO2). Understanding the physics governing fluid flow is important to both CO2 storage and hydrocarbon exploration and production. In the last decade, there has been much research into the movement and migration of CO2 in the subsurface. A better understanding of the flow dynamics of CO2 plumes in the subsurface has highlighted a number of significant differences in modeling CO2 storage sites compared with hydrocarbon reservoir simulations. These differences can greatly influence reliability when modeling CO2 storage sites.

GEOLOGICAL STORAGE OF CARBON DIOXIDE: MODELLING THE EARLY CRETACEOUS SUCCESSION IN THE BARROW SUB-BASIN, NORTHWEST AUSTRALIA

2004 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 653 ◽  
Author(s):  
C.M. Gibson-Poole ◽  
J.E. Streit ◽  
S.C. Lang ◽  
A.L. Hennig ◽  
C.J. Otto
Keyword(s):  
Storage Capacity ◽  
Flow Direction ◽  
Co2 Storage ◽  
Column Height ◽  
Co2 Injection ◽  
Technical Solution ◽  
Exit Point ◽  
Geological Storage ◽  
Migration Pathways ◽  
Northwest Australia

Potential sites for geological storage of CO2 require detailed assessment of storage capacity, containment potential and migration pathways. A possible candidate is the Flag Sandstone of the Barrow Sub-basin, northwest Australia, sealed by the Muderong Shale. The Flag Sandstone consists of a series of stacked, amalgamated, basin floor fan lobes with good lateral interconnectivity. The main reservoir sandstones have high reservoir quality with an average porosity of 21% and an average permeability of about 1,250 mD. The Muderong Shale has excellent seal capacity, with the potential to withhold an average CO2 column height of 750 m. Other containment issues were addressed by in situ stress and fault stability analysis. An average orientation of 095°N for the maximum horizontal stress was estimated. The stress regime is strike-slip at the likely injection depth (below 1,800 m). Most of the major faults in the study area have east-northeast to northeast trends and failure plots indicate that some of these faults may be reactivated if CO2 injection pressures are not monitored closely. Where average fault dips are known, maximum sustainable formation pressures were estimated to be less than 27 MPa at 2 km depth. Hydrodynamic modelling indicated that the pre-production regional formation water flow direction was from the sub-basin margins towards the centre, with an exit point to the southwest. However, this flow direction and rate have been altered by a hydraulic low in the eastern part of the sub-basin due to hydrocarbon production. The integrated site analysis indicates a potential CO2 storage capacity in the order of thousands of Mtonnes. Such capacity for geological storage could provide a technical solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

scholarly journals Induced seismicity in geologic carbon storage

Solid Earth ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 871-892 ◽  
Author(s):  
Víctor Vilarrasa ◽  
Jesus Carrera ◽  
Sebastià Olivella ◽  
Jonny Rutqvist ◽  
Lyesse Laloui
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Storage ◽  
Induced Seismicity ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Fault Reactivation ◽  
Wellbore Stability ◽  
Rock Properties ◽  
Geologic Carbon Storage ◽  
Stress Changes ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Injection Formation

Abstract. Geologic carbon storage, as well as other geo-energy applications, such as geothermal energy, seasonal natural gas storage and subsurface energy storage imply fluid injection and/or extraction that causes changes in rock stress field and may induce (micro)seismicity. If felt, seismicity has a negative effect on public perception and may jeopardize wellbore stability and damage infrastructure. Thus, induced earthquakes should be minimized to successfully deploy geo-energies. However, numerous processes may trigger induced seismicity, which contribute to making it complex and translates into a limited forecast ability of current predictive models. We review the triggering mechanisms of induced seismicity. Specifically, we analyze (1) the impact of pore pressure evolution and the effect that properties of the injected fluid have on fracture and/or fault stability; (2) non-isothermal effects caused by the fact that the injected fluid usually reaches the injection formation at a lower temperature than that of the rock, inducing rock contraction, thermal stress reduction and stress redistribution around the cooled region; (3) local stress changes induced when low-permeability faults cross the injection formation, which may reduce their stability and eventually cause fault reactivation; (4) stress transfer caused by seismic or aseismic slip; and (5) geochemical effects, which may be especially relevant in carbonate-containing formations. We also review characterization techniques developed by the authors to reduce the uncertainty in rock properties and subsurface heterogeneity both for the screening of injection sites and for the operation of projects. Based on the review, we propose a methodology based on proper site characterization, monitoring and pressure management to minimize induced seismicity.

scholarly journals Managing geologic CO2 storage with pre-injection brine production: a strategy evaluated with a model of CO2 injection at Snøhvit

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 1504-1512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Buscheck ◽  
Joshua A. White ◽  
Susan A. Carroll ◽  
Jeffrey M. Bielicki ◽  
Roger D. Aines
Keyword(s):  
Storage Capacity ◽  
Co2 Storage ◽  
Co2 Injection ◽  
Geologic Co2 Storage

By removing brine from a reservoir prior to storing CO2, storage capacity can be increased by nearly an equivalent volume.

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