Toward Quantitative CO2 Storage Monitoring: Estimation of Pore Pressure and Saturation from Geophysical Inputs

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Dupuy ◽  
A. Romdhane
Keyword(s):  
Pore Pressure ◽  
Co2 Storage

scholarly journals Pore Pressure Analysis for Distinguishing Earthquakes Induced by CO2 Injection from Natural Earthquakes

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (22) ◽  
pp. 9723
Author(s):  
Chanmaly Chhun ◽  
Takeshi Tsuji
Keyword(s):  
Pore Pressure ◽  
Co2 Storage ◽  
Carbon Capture And Storage ◽  
Co2 Injection ◽  
Storage Site ◽  
Seasonal Fluctuations ◽  
Induced Earthquakes ◽  
Seismogenic Fault ◽  
Seismogenic Faults ◽  
Natural Earthquakes

It is important to distinguish between natural earthquakes and those induced by CO2 injection at carbon capture and storage sites. For example, the 2004 Mw 6.8 Chuetsu earthquake occurred close to the Nagaoka CO2 storage site during gas injection, but we could not quantify whether the earthquake was due to CO2 injection or not. Here, changes in pore pressure during CO2 injection at the Nagaoka site were simulated and compared with estimated natural seasonal fluctuations in pore pressure due to rainfall and snowmelt, as well as estimated pore pressure increases related to remote earthquakes. Changes in pore pressure due to CO2 injection were clearly distinguished from those due to rainfall and snowmelt. The simulated local increase in pore pressure at the seismogenic fault area was much less than the seasonal fluctuations related to precipitation and increases caused by remote earthquakes, and the lateral extent of pore pressure increase was insufficient to influence seismogenic faults. We also demonstrated that pore pressure changes due to distant earthquakes are capable of triggering slip on seismogenic faults. The approach we developed could be used to distinguish natural from injection-induced earthquakes and will be useful for that purpose at other CO2 sequestration sites.

scholarly journals Sensitivity Analysis of Geomechanical Constraints in CO2 Storage to Screen Potential Sites in Deep Saline Aquifers

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yashvardhan Verma ◽  
Vikram Vishal ◽  
P. G. Ranjith
Keyword(s):  
Sensitivity Analysis ◽  
Pore Pressure ◽  
Co2 Storage ◽  
Pressure Rise ◽  
Injection Rate ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Rock Properties ◽  
Deep Aquifers ◽  
Plume Migration ◽  
Storage Potential

In order to tackle the exponential rise in global CO2 emissions, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) proposed a carbon budget of 2,900 Gt to limit the rise in global temperature levels to 2°C above the pre-industrial level. Apart from curbing our emissions, carbon sequestration can play a significant role in meeting these ambitious goals. More than 500 Gt of CO2 will need to be stored underground by the end of this century to make a meaningful impact. Global capacity for CO2 storage far exceeds this requirement, the majority of which resides in unexplored deep aquifers. To identify potential storage sites and quantify their storage capacities, prospective aquifers or reservoirs need to be screened based on properties that affect the retention of CO2 in porous rocks. Apart from the total volume of a reservoir, the storage potential is largely constrained by an increase in pore pressure during the early years of injection and by migration of the CO2 plume in the long term. The reservoir properties affect both the pressure buildup and the plume front below the caprock. However, not many studies have quantified these effects. The current analysis computes the effect of rock properties (porosity, permeability, permeability anisotropy, pore compressibility, and formation water salinity) and injection rate on both these parameters by simulating CO2 injection at the bottom of a 2D mesh grid with hydrostatic boundary conditions. The study found that the most significant property in the sensitivity analysis was permeability. Porosity too affected the CO2 plume migration substantially, with higher porosities considerably delaying horizontal and vertical migration. Injection rate impacted both the pressure rise and plume migration consistently. Thus, in screening potential storage sites, we can infer that permeability is the dominant criterion when the pore pressure is closer to the minimum principal stress in the rocks, due to which injection rate needs to be managed with greater caution. Porosity is more significant when the lateral extents of the reservoir limit the storage potential.

Carbon Dioxide Sequestration and Drainage in Saline Aquifer

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Ennin
Keyword(s):  
Pore Pressure ◽  
Relative Permeability ◽  
Produced Water ◽  
Co2 Storage ◽  
Trapping Efficiency ◽  
Core Flooding ◽  
Fractional Flow ◽  
The Core ◽  
Water Volumes ◽  
Water Trapping

Abstract Geological storage of CO2 in saline aquifers is recognized as a favorable technique that could deliver a significant decrease in CO2 emissions over the short to medium-term. However, the major risk is the possibility of leakage and injection limitation due to pore pressure. This research investigates the three major mechanisms of CO2 trapping to determine which method safely captures the most CO2, interrogates the pore pressure effect on storage, and compares traditional core flooding methods for CO2 storage with CO2 drainage which is more practical in the aquifer. A core flooding set up was built to replicate reservoir conditions of the Anadarko Basin in Texas, USA. The research involved three reservoir pay zone rocks obtained from depths of about 7687ft that were pieced together to undergo core flooding at 4400psi-5200psi and a temperature of 168°F. In the first study conducted the core was flooded with supercritical CO2 and brine of salinity 4000ppm to generate relative permeability curves to represent drainage and imbibition. For the duration of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th studies the core saturated with brine is flooded with CO2 at pressures of 4400psi, 4800psi, and 5200psi. Parameters like the volume of CO2 captured, connate water volumes, differential pressure, Ph of produced water, trapping efficiency, relative permeability, and fractional flow curves are noted. After scrutinizing the result it is observed that the highest volume of CO2 is captured by solubility trapping followed by structural trapping and residual trapping in that order. From this research, it can be concluded that CO2 trapping, at least for these reservoir rocks, is not affected by pore pressure. Also contrary to most practices CO2 storage is best replaced in the laboratory using drainage experiments instead of the widely used relative permeability approach.

scholarly journals Deep Learning a Poro-Elastic Rock Physics Model for Pressure and Saturation Discrimination

Geophysics ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-55
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Weinzierl ◽  
Bernd Wiese
Keyword(s):  
Pore Pressure ◽  
Co2 Storage ◽  
Rock Physics ◽  
Seismic Attenuation ◽  
Physical Models ◽  
Physical Parameters ◽  
High Porosity ◽  
Hydrocarbon Production ◽  
Physical Attributes ◽  
Physics Model

Determining saturation and pore pressure is relevant for hydrocarbon production as well as natural gas and CO2 storage. In this context seismic methods provide spatially distributed data used to determine gas and fluid migration. A method is developed that allows to determine saturation and reservoir pressure from seismic data, more precisely from rock physical attributes that are velocity, attenuation and density. Two rock physical models based on Hertz-Mindlin-Gassmann and Biot-Gassmann are developed. Both generate poroelastic attributes from pore pressure, gas saturation and other rock-physical parameters. The rock physical models are inverted with deep neural networks to derive e.g. saturation, pore pressure and porosity from rock physical attributes. The method is demonstrated with a 65 m deep unconsolidated high porosity reservoir at the Svelvik ridge, Norway. Tests for the most suitable structure of the neural network are carried out. Saturation and pressure can be meaningfully determined under condition of a gas-free baseline with known pressure and data from an accurate seismic campaign, preferably cross-well seismic. Including seismic attenuation increases the accuracy. The training requires hours, predictions just a few seconds, allowing for rapid interpretation of seismic results.

Long-term Pressure Evolutions due to Geologic Heterogeneities during CO2 Injection

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taehee Kim
Keyword(s):  
Pore Pressure ◽  
Co2 Storage ◽  
Sedimentary Environment ◽  
Pressure Rise ◽  
Injection Well ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Co2 Injection ◽  
Statistical Parameters ◽  
Additional Increase

<p>In general, the characterization of the heterogeneity in a reservoir is considered to be important in the exploration and selection of CO2 storage formation, but it is not clear how the heterogeneity affects the evolution of the pore pressure. In particular, long-term changes in the pore pressure when most of the storage candidates are bounded by faults or bedrock, such as Korea, have been rarely examined. Many literature related to results of studies and international CCS standardization indicate that the heterogeneity of storage formation should be identified, but it is still unclear to what extent the precision or resolution of the investigation is required at the selection or design stage. The heterogeneity of sedimentary layers can be divided into two categories in terms of geographic statistics. At this time, the criteria of the classification is statistical stationarity. From a geological point of view, the statistical stationarity may be consistent with the sedimentary environment. In other words, it can be assumed that strata deposited at the same place, at similar times, and in similar circumstances have similar hydrogeological properties, despite of some detailed differences. In this case, the heterogeneity refers to “detailed differences” and the homogeneity refers to statistical parameters such as means or variances of physical properties and spatial auto-covariance. On the other hand, the nonstationary heterogeneity refers to a case where there is no statistical homogeneity, due to differences in geological structures such as faults and differences in strata such as sandstone and mudstone. In this study, the numerical sensitivity analysis was used to investigate the effect of each heterogeneity on the pressure buildup. The nonstationary heterogeneity applied in this study is a vertical structure that completely penetrates the storage formation. The results of ten models with the stationary heterogeneity showed almost similar pressure changes in the macroscale, although there were some pore pressure differences at the injection well between each of models. The pressure difference at the injection well between each model was dependent on the bulk permeability within a certain distance (200m in this study) near the injection wells, not on the average permeability of the whole system. In other words, when the injection well is installed at a point having a relatively high permeability, some additional increase in pressure due to the heterogeneity rarely occurs. However, lowering the permeability due to nonstationary heterogeneity can causes the global pressure rise in the storage formation, results were very similar to those of the case with closed boundary condition when the heterogeneity reduced the permeability to 10-4 times or less of the permeability in the storage formation.</p>

scholarly journals Pore Pressure Analysis for Distinguishing Earthquakes Induced by CO2 Injection from Natural Earthquakes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chanmaly Chhun ◽  
Takeshi Tsuji
Keyword(s):  
Pore Pressure ◽  
Co2 Storage ◽  
Carbon Capture And Storage ◽  
Co2 Injection ◽  
Storage Site ◽  
Seasonal Fluctuations ◽  
Induced Earthquakes ◽  
Seismogenic Fault ◽  
Seismogenic Faults ◽  
Natural Earthquakes

It is important to distinguish between natural earthquakes and those induced by CO2 injection at carbon capture and storage sites. For example, the 2004 Mw 6.8 Chuetsu earthquake occurred close to the Nagaoka CO2 storage site during gas injection, but we could not quantify whether the earthquake was due to CO2 injection or not. Here we simulated changes of pore pressure during CO2 injection at the Nagaoka site and compared them with estimated natural seasonal fluctuations of pore pressure due to rainfall and snowmelt as well as estimated pore pressure increases related to remote earthquakes. We clearly distinguished changes of pore pressure due to CO2 injection from those due to rainfall and snowmelt. The simulated local increase in pore pressure at seismogenic fault area was much less than the seasonal fluctuations related to precipitation and increases caused by remote earthquakes, and the lateral extent of pore pressure increase was insufficient to influence seismogenic faults. We also demonstrated that pore pressure changes due to distant earthquakes are capable of triggering slip on seismogenic faults. The approach we developed could be used to distinguish natural from injection-induced earthquakes and will be useful for that purpose at other CO2 sequestration sites.

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