Evaluating 3D and 4D DAS VSP image quality of subsea carbon storage

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 261-266
Author(s):  
Glenn A. Wilson ◽  
Mark E. Willis ◽  
Andreas Ellmauthaler
Keyword(s):  
Image Quality ◽  
Carbon Storage ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Carbon Capture ◽  
Fiber Optic ◽  
Time Lapse ◽  
Storage Site ◽  
Seismic Image ◽  
And Storage

In all carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) projects, monitoring, verification, and accounting is required to span short to long periods to ensure plume extents and geologic integrity meet operational and regulatory objectives. Fiber-optic cables permanently deployed in the completions of injector wells enable time-lapse (4D) vertical seismic profile (VSP) imaging using distributed acoustic sensing (DAS). Most CCUS projects are onshore, and the majority of those utilize supercritical CO2 flooding for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). In these cases, fiber-optic installations, acquisition, and analysis are relatively straightforward. Offshore transport and storage projects, whether for EOR or sequestration in saline aquifers, may utilize subsea wells wherein fiber-optic deployment is not as straightforward. Unlike dry-tree wells, DAS of subsea wells requires advanced optical engineering solutions to compensate for the reduced acoustic bandwidth, optical losses, and back reflections accumulated through umbilicals, multiple wet- and dry-mate optical connectors, splices, optical feedthrough systems, and downhole fibers. In this paper, we simulate VSP shot records of a carbon storage site for a variety of proposed subsea DAS concepts and evaluate the 3D and 4D seismic image quality of each using Kirchhoff migration of upgoing seismic wavefields with their expected signal-to-noise ratios. We normalize interrogator performance, so we are evaluating the sensing topology only. We show that a subsea fiber topology consisting of dual transmission fibers, a remote circulator with selective amplification of the backscattered light, and enhanced backscatter sensing fiber results in high-quality seismic images suitable for both 3D and 4D VSPs of carbon storage.

A Laboratory Investigation of the Effect of Ethanol-Treated Carbon Dioxide Injection on Oil Recovery and Carbon Dioxide Storage

SPE Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Saira ◽  
Emmanuel Ajoma ◽  
Furqan Le-Hussain
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Carbon Capture ◽  
Molar Fraction ◽  
Co2 Injection ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Injection ◽  
Treated Carbon ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Co2 ◽  
And Storage ◽  
Experimental Runs

Summary Carbon dioxide (CO2) enhanced oil recovery is the most economical technique for carbon capture, usage, and storage. In depleted reservoirs, full or near-miscibility of injected CO2 with oil is difficult to achieve, and immiscible CO2 injection leaves a large volume of oil behind and limits available pore volume (PV) for storing CO2. In this paper, we present an experimental study to delineate the effect of ethanol-treated CO2 injection on oil recovery, net CO2 stored, and amount of ethanol left in the reservoir. We inject CO2 and ethanol-treated CO2 into Bentheimer Sandstone cores representing reservoirs. The oil phase consists of a mixture of 0.65 hexane and 0.35 decane (C6-C10 mixture) by molar fraction in one set of experimental runs, and pure decane (C10) in the other set of experimental runs. All experimental runs are conducted at constant temperature 70°C and various pressures to exhibit immiscibility (9.0 MPa for the C6-C10 mixture and 9.6 MPa for pure C10) or near-miscibility (11.7 MPa for the C6-C10 mixture and 12.1 MPa for pure C10). Pressure differences across the core, oil recovery, and compositions and rates of the produced fluids are recorded during the experimental runs. Ultimate oil recovery under immiscibility is found to be 9 to 15% greater using ethanol-treated CO2 injection than that using pure CO2 injection. Net CO2 stored for pure C10 under immiscibility is found to be 0.134 PV greater during ethanol-treated CO2 injection than during pure CO2 injection. For the C6-C10 mixture under immiscibility, both ethanol-treated CO2 injection and CO2 injection yield the same net CO2 stored. However, for the C6-C10 mixture under near-miscibility,ethanol-treated CO2 injection is found to yield 0.161 PV less net CO2 stored than does pure CO2 injection. These results suggest potential improvement in oil recovery and net CO2 stored using ethanol-treated CO2 injection instead of pure CO2 injection. If economically viable, ethanol-treated CO2 injection could be used as a carbon capture, usage, and storage method in low-pressure reservoirs, for which pure CO2 injection would be infeasible.

scholarly journals Making the subsurface political: How enhanced oil recovery techniques reshaped the energy transition

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 733-750
Author(s):  
Sébastien Chailleux
Keyword(s):  
Enhanced Oil Recovery ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Carbon Capture ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Carbon Capture And Storage ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Recovery Techniques ◽  
And Storage

Analyzing the case of France, this article aims to explain how the development of enhanced oil recovery techniques over the last decade contributed to politicizing the subsurface, that is putting underground resources at the center of social unrest and political debates. France faced a decline of its oil and gas activity in the 1990s, followed by a renewal with subsurface activity in the late 2000s using enhanced oil recovery techniques. An industrial demonstrator for carbon capture and storage was developed between 2010 and 2013 , while projects targeting unconventional oil and gas were pushed forward between 2008 and 2011 before eventually being canceled. We analyze how the credibility, legitimacy, and governance of those techniques were developed and how conflicts made the role of the subsurface for energy transition the target of political choices. The level of political and industrial support and social protest played a key role in building project legitimacy, while the types of narratives and their credibility determined the distinct trajectories of hydraulic fracturing and carbon capture and storage in France. The conflicts over enhanced oil recovery techniques are also explained through the critical assessment of the governance framework that tends to exclude civil society stakeholders. We suggest that these conflicts illustrated a new type of politicization of the subsurface by merging geostrategic concerns with social claims about governance, ecological demands about pollution, and linking local preoccupations to global climate change.

scholarly journals Enabling Large-Scale Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage (CCUS) Using Offshore Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Infrastructure Developments—A Review

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 1945 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Ingolf Eide ◽  
Melissa Batum ◽  
Tim Dixon ◽  
Zabia Elamin ◽  
Arne Graue ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Carbon Capture ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Reservoir Performance ◽  
High Investment ◽  
Co2 Eor ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Co2 ◽  
And Storage

Presently, the only offshore project for enhanced oil recovery using carbon dioxide, known as CO2-EOR, is in Brazil. Several desk studies have been undertaken, without any projects being implemented. The objective of this review is to investigate barriers to the implementation of large-scale offshore CO2-EOR projects, to identify recent technology developments, and to suggest non-technological incentives that may enable implementation. We examine differences between onshore and offshore CO2-EOR, emerging technologies that could enable projects, as well as approaches and regulatory requirements that may help overcome barriers. Our review shows that there are few, if any, technical barriers to offshore CO2-EOR. However, there are many other barriers to the implementation of offshore CO2-EOR, including: High investment and operation costs, uncertainties about reservoir performance, limited access of CO2 supply, lack of business models, and uncertainties about regulations. This review describes recent technology developments that may remove such barriers and concludes with recommendations for overcoming non-technical barriers. The review is based on a report by the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF).

scholarly journals The Endurance CO2 storage site, Blocks 42/25 and 43/21, UK North Sea

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon G. Gluyas ◽  
Usman Bagudu
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Capture ◽  
Co2 Storage ◽  
Carbon Capture And Storage ◽  
Lower Triassic ◽  
Injection Rate ◽  
Government Support ◽  
Storage Site ◽  
Sandstone Formation ◽  
The Uk ◽  
And Storage

AbstractThe Endurance, four-way, dip-closed structure in UK Blocks 42/25 and 43/21 occurs over a salt swell diapir and within Triassic and younger strata. The Lower Triassic Bunter Sandstone Formation reservoir within the structure was tested twice for natural gas (in 1970 and 1990) but both wells were dry. The reservoir is both thick and high quality and, as such, an excellent candidate site for subsurface CO2 storage.In 2013 a consortium led by National Grid Carbon drilled an appraisal well on the structure and undertook an injection test ahead of a planned development of Endurance as the first bespoke storage site on the UK Continental Shelf with an expected injection rate of 2.68 × 106 t of dense phase CO2 each year for 20 years. The site was not developed following the UK Government's removal of financial support for carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration projects, but it is hoped with the recent March 2020 Budget that government support for CCS may now be back on track.

CCS AS ONE OF the CO2 EMISSION REDUCTION METHODS

2017 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Teresa ADAMCZAK-BIAŁY ◽  
Adam WÓJCICKI
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Plains ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Carbon Capture ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Carbon Capture And Storage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Geological Storage ◽  
Co2 Emission Reduction ◽  
And Storage

Information presented in the article allows us to introduce one of the ways of reducing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions responsible for the temperature increase and climate change. This is the technology of capture and underground storage of carbon dioxide in geologic structures (Carbon Capture and Storage/Sequestration – CCS). Most of the large-scale CCS projects (i.e. capture and storage of an order of magnitude of 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year) operate in the United States and Canada. Many of them are associated with the use of CO2 captured from the industrial processes for the enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The presented examples of projects are: Boundary Dam Integrated Carbon Capture and Sequestration Demonstration Project (Canada), Great Plains Synfuels and Weyburn-Midale Project (Canada), and Kemper County IGCC Project (United States). CCS projects are crucial for demonstrating the technological readiness and reduce the cost of wider commercial implementation of capture and geological storage of CO2. The status of the projects on geological storage of CO2 in 2015 is 15 large-scale CCS projects operating around the world, and 7 projects in execution.

scholarly journals Uncertainty in regional estimates of capacity for carbon capture and storage

Solid Earth ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 1707-1715 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Wilkinson ◽  
Debbie Polson
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Capture ◽  
Storage Capacity ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Carbon Capture And Storage ◽  
Saline Aquifers ◽  
Storage Site ◽  
Limited Data ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Regional Estimates ◽  
And Storage

Abstract. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a potentially important technology for the mitigation of industrial CO2 emissions. However, the majority of the subsurface storage capacity is in saline aquifers, for which there is relatively little information. Published estimates of the potential storage capacity of such formations, based on limited data, often give no indication of the uncertainty, despite there being substantial uncertainty associated with the data used to calculate such estimates. Here, we test the hypothesis that the uncertainty in such estimates is a significant proportion of the estimated storage capacity, and should hence be evaluated as a part of any assessment. Using only publicly available data, a group of 13 experts independently estimated the storage capacity of seven regional saline aquifers. The experts produced a wide range of estimates for each aquifer due to a combination of using different published values for some variables and differences in their judgements of the aquifer properties such as area and thickness. The range of storage estimates produced by the experts shows that there is significant uncertainty in such estimates; in particular, the experts' range does not capture the highest possible capacity estimates. This means that by not accounting for uncertainty, such regional estimates may underestimate the true storage capacity. The result is applicable to single values of storage capacity of regional potential but not to detailed studies of a single storage site.

scholarly journals Source Sink Matching for Field Scale CCUS CO2-EOR Application in Indonesia

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-106
Author(s):  
Usman Usman ◽  
Dadan DSM Saputra ◽  
Nurus Firdaus
Keyword(s):  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Carbon Capture ◽  
Greenhouse Gas Emission ◽  
Oil Field ◽  
Governmental Organization ◽  
Co2 Eor ◽  
Source Sink ◽  
And Storage

The carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) referred in this paper is limited to the use of CO2 to the enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR). The CCUS CO2-EOR technology can magnify oil production substantially while a consistent amount of the CO2 injected remains sequestrated in the reservoir, which is beneficial for reducing the greenhouse gas emission. Therefore, this technology is a potentially attractive win-win solution for Indonesia to meet the goal of improved energy supply and security, while also reducing CO2 emissions over the long term. The success of CCUS depends on the proper sources-sinks matching. This paper presents a systematic approach to pairing the CO2 captured from industrial activities with suitable oil fields for CO2-EOR. Inventories of CO2 sources and oil reservoirs were done through survey and data questionnaires. The process of sources-sinks matching was preceded by identifying the CO2 sources within the radius of 100 and 200 km from each oil field and clustering the fields within the same radius from each CO2 source. Each cluster is mapped on the GIS platform included existing and planning right of way for trunk pipelines. Pairing of source-sink are ranked to identify high priority development. Results of this study should be interest to project developers, policymakers, government agencies, academicians, civil society and environmental non-governmental organization in order to enable them to assess the role of CCUS CO2-EOR as a major carbon management strategy.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document