The CSIRO In-Situ Laboratory: a field laboratory for derisking underground gas storage

2021 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 438
Author(s):  
Karsten Michael ◽  
Ludovic Ricard ◽  
Linda Stalker ◽  
Allison Hortle
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Natural Gas ◽  
Western Australia ◽  
Water Injection ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Fluid Injection ◽  
Field Site ◽  
Fibre Optics ◽  
Monitoring Technologies

The industry in western Australia has committed to addressing their carbon emissions in response to the governments aspiration of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Natural gas will play an important role in the transition to a fully renewable energy market but will require the geological storage of carbon dioxide to limit emissions and enable the production of blue hydrogen. Underground storage of energy in general (e.g. natural gas, hydrogen, compressed air) will be needed increasingly for providing options for temporary storage of energy from renewable resources and for energy export. Storage operations would need to provide adequate monitoring systems in compliance with yet to be defined regulations and to assure the public that potential leakage or induced seismicity could be confidently detected, managed and remediated. The In-Situ Laboratory in the southwest of western Australia was established in 2019 as a research field site to support low emissions technologies development and provides a unique field site for fluid injection experiments in a fault zone and testing of monitoring technologies between 400m depth and the ground surface. The site currently consists of three wells instrumented with fibre optics, pressure, temperature and electric resistivity sensors as well as downhole geophones. A controlled release of CO2 and various water injection tests have demonstrated the ability to detect pressure and temperature effects associated with fluid injection. Future experiments planned at the site will help in improving the sensitivity of monitoring technologies and could contribute to defining adequate monitoring requirements for carbon dioxide, hydrogen and other energy storage operations.

The CSIRO In-Situ Laboratory in South Western Australia: a field laboratory for de-risking carbon storage

2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 732
Author(s):  
Karsten Michael ◽  
Ludovic Ricard ◽  
Linda Stalker ◽  
Allison Hortle ◽  
Arsham Avijegon
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Storage ◽  
Western Australia ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Technology Development ◽  
Ground Surface ◽  
Oil And Gas Industry ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Field Site ◽  
Monitoring Technologies

The oil and gas industry in Western Australia will need to address their carbon emissions in response to the state government’s aspiration of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The geological storage of carbon dioxide is a proven technology and an option for reducing emissions. Storage operations would need to provide adequate monitoring systems in compliance with yet to be defined regulations and to assure the public that potential leakage could be confidently detected, managed and remediated. The In-Situ Laboratory in the south-west of Western Australia was established as a research field site to support low emissions technology development and provides a unique field site for controlled CO2 release experiments in a fault zone and testing of monitoring technologies between 400 m depth and the ground surface. A first test injection of 38 tonnes of food-grade gaseous CO2 in 2019 demonstrated the ability to detect less than 10 tonnes of CO2 with fibre optic sensing and borehole seismic testing. Results from the previous test and future experiments will help to improve the sensitivity of monitoring technologies and could contribute to defining adequate monitoring requirements for carbon storage regulations.

An in situ, energy-dispersive x-ray diffraction study of natural gas conversion by carbon dioxide reforming

1993 ◽  
Vol 97 (13) ◽  
pp. 3355-3358 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. T. Ashcroft ◽  
A. K. Cheetham ◽  
R. H. Jones ◽  
S. Natarajan ◽  
J. M. Thomas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Natural Gas ◽  
Diffraction Study ◽  
Energy Dispersive ◽  
X Ray Diffraction ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Reforming ◽  
Natural Gas Conversion ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Gas Conversion

Gas Hydrate Formation in the Deep Sea:  In Situ Experiments with Controlled Release of Methane, Natural Gas, and Carbon Dioxide

1998 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter G. Brewer ◽  
Franklin M. Orr, ◽  
Gernot Friederich ◽  
Keith A. Kvenvolden ◽  
Daniel L. Orange
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Controlled Release ◽  
Natural Gas ◽  
Gas Hydrate ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Hydrate Formation ◽  
Gas Hydrate Formation ◽  
In Situ Experiments

Feasibility of simultaneous CO2 storage and CH4 production from natural gas hydrate using mixtures of CO2 and N2

2015 ◽  
Vol 93 (8) ◽  
pp. 897-905 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bjørn Kvamme
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Natural Gas ◽  
Gas Permeability ◽  
Selective Adsorption ◽  
Co2 Storage ◽  
Separate Flow ◽  
Gas Production ◽  
Ch4 Production ◽  
Flow Channels

Production of natural gas from hydrate using carbon dioxide allows for a win-win situation in which carbon dioxide can be safely stored in hydrate form while releasing natural gas from in situ hydrate. This concept has been verified experimentally and theoretically in different laboratories worldwide, and lately also in a pilot plant in Alaska. The use of carbon dioxide mixed with nitrogen has the advantage of higher gas permeability. Blocking of flow channels due to formation of new hydrate from injected gas will also be less compared to injection of pure carbon dioxide. The fastest mechanism for conversion involves the formation of a new hydrate from free pore water and the injected gas. As a consequence of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, the most stable hydrate will form first in a dynamic situation, in which carbon dioxide will dominate the first hydrates formed from water and carbon dioxide / nitrogen mixtures. This selective formation process is further enhanced by favorable selective adsorption of carbon dioxide onto mineral surfaces as well as onto liquid water surfaces, which facilitates efficient heterogeneous hydrate nucleation. In this work we examine limitations of hydrate stability as function of gradually decreasing content of carbon dioxide. It is argued that if the flux of gas through the reservoir is high enough to prevent the gas from being depleted for carbon dioxide prior to subsequent supply of new gas, then the combined carbon dioxide storage and natural gas production is still feasible. Otherwise the residual gas dominated by nitrogen will still dissociate the methane hydrate, if the released in situ CH4 from hydrate does not mix in with the gas but escapes through separate flow channels by buoyancy. The ratio of nitrogen to carbon dioxide in such mixtures is therefore a sensitive balance between flow rates and formation rates of new carbon dioxide dominated hydrate. Hydrate instability due to undersaturations of hydrate formers have not been discussed in this work but might add additional instability aspects.

scholarly journals Cyclic Subcritical Water Injection into Bazhenov Oil Shale: Geochemical and Petrophysical Properties Evolution Due to Hydrothermal Exposure

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (15) ◽  
pp. 4570
Author(s):  
Aman Turakhanov ◽  
Albina Tsyshkova ◽  
Elena Mukhina ◽  
Evgeny Popov ◽  
Darya Kalacheva ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Energy Demand ◽  
Oil Shale ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Subcritical Water ◽  
Pore Space ◽  
Water Injection ◽  
Microstructural Properties ◽  
Gas Generation ◽  
Geochemical Parameters

In situ shale or kerogen oil production is a promising approach to developing vast oil shale resources and increasing world energy demand. In this study, cyclic subcritical water injection in oil shale was investigated in laboratory conditions as a method for in situ oil shale retorting. Fifteen non-extracted oil shale samples from Bazhenov Formation in Russia (98 °C and 23.5 MPa reservoir conditions) were hydrothermally treated at 350 °C and in a 25 MPa semi-open system during 50 h in the cyclic regime. The influence of the artificial maturation on geochemical parameters, elastic and microstructural properties was studied. Rock-Eval pyrolysis of non-extracted and extracted oil shale samples before and after hydrothermal exposure and SARA analysis were employed to analyze bitumen and kerogen transformation to mobile hydrocarbons and immobile char. X-ray computed microtomography (XMT) was performed to characterize the microstructural properties of pore space. The results demonstrated significant porosity, specific pore surface area increase, and the appearance of microfractures in organic-rich layers. Acoustic measurements were carried out to estimate the alteration of elastic properties due to hydrothermal treatment. Both Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio decreased due to kerogen transformation to heavy oil and bitumen, which remain trapped before further oil and gas generation, and expulsion occurs. Ultimately, a developed kinetic model was applied to match kerogen and bitumen transformation with liquid and gas hydrocarbons production. The nonlinear least-squares optimization problem was solved during the integration of the system of differential equations to match produced hydrocarbons with pyrolysis derived kerogen and bitumen decomposition.

The Effect of Water Injection on Sustained Combustion in a Porous Medium

1970 ◽  
Vol 10 (02) ◽  
pp. 145-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.L. Beckers ◽  
G.J. Harmsen
Keyword(s):  
Cross Section ◽  
Combustion Zone ◽  
Water Injection ◽  
Combustion Process ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Porous Matrix ◽  
Theoretical Description ◽  
Air Injection ◽  
Injection Ratio

Abstract This paper gives a theoretical description of the various semisteady states that may develop if in an in-situ combustion process water is injected together with the air. The investigation bas been restricted to cases of one-dimensional flow without heat losses, such as would occur in a narrow, perfectly insulated tube. perfectly insulated tube. Different types of behavior can be distinguished for specific ranges of the water/air injection ratio. At low values of this ratio the injected water evaporates before it reaches the combustion zone, while at high values it passes through the combustion zone without being completely evaporated, but without extinguishing combustion. At intermediate values and at sufficiently high fuel in which all water entering the combustion zone evaporates before leaving it. Formulas are presented that give the combustion zone velocity as a function of water/air injection ratio for each of the possible situations. Introduction In-situ combustion of part of the oil in an oil-bearing formation has become an established thermal-recovery technique, even though its economic prospects are limited by inherent technical drawbacks. The process has been extensively investigated both in the laboratory and in the field, while theoretical studies have also been made. The latter studies showed how performance was affected by various physical and chemical phenomena, such as conduction and convection of phenomena, such as conduction and convection of heat, reaction rate and phase changes. The degree of simplification determined whether these studies were of an analytical or a numerical nature. Recently an improvement of the process has been proposed. This modification involves the proposed. This modification involves the injection of water together with the air. The water serves to recuperate the heat stored in the burned-out sand, which would otherwise be wasted. This heat is now used to evaporate water. The steam thus formed condenses downstream of the combustion zone, where it displaces oil. At sufficiently high water-injection rates unevaporated water is bound to enter the combustion zone because more heat is required for complete evaporation than is available in the hot sand. Experiments showed that even under these conditions combustion is maintained. The improvement consists in a lower oxygen consumption per barrel of oil displaced and lower combustion-zone temperatures. This paper gives a theoretical description of this so-called wet-combustion process as described by Dietz and Weijdema. The prime object is to answer the basic question whether at any water/air injection ratio this process can be steady so that combustion does not die out. This objective justifies a number of assumptions that do not entirely correspond to physical reality, but that owe necessary for a physical reality, but that owe necessary for a tractable analytical treatment. This treatment is limited to the following idealized conditions.The process occurs in a perfectly insulated cylinder of unit cross-sectional area and infinite length.The Hudds are homogeneously distributed over the cross-section of the cylinder.Exchange of heat between the fluid phases and between fluids and matrix is instantaneous, so that in any cross-section the fluid phases are in equilibrium and the temperatures of fluids and porous matrix are the same. porous matrix are the same.Pressure chops over distances of interest are small compared with the pressure itself. (Pressure is taken to be constant.)Injection rates are constant, and a steady state has already been obtained. The second assumption implies that no segregation of liquid and gas occurs. Experimentally this might be achieved by using small-diameter tubes, where segregation is largely compensated by capillarity. SPEJ P. 145

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