Update of Carbon Storage Field Projects

1. Update of Carbon Storage Field Projects Susan D. Hovorka Bureau of Economic Geology Jackson School of Geosciences The University of Texas at Austin Presentation to Underground Injection Control (UIC) Educational Track 2007 Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Trade Fair & Conference Wednesday, May 2, 2007

2. Well Known Trapping mechanisms Monitoring strategies to image and quantify plume evolution Validity of modeling approaches – modification of existing simulators Major leakage risks Volume of storage US, Australia, Japan, Europe Poorly Known Modeling/monitoring in low permeability rocks Monitoring to detect low rates of leakage over long time frames Performance of non-matrix systems (coal, basalt) Risks resulting from very large scale-up Volume of storage in developing nations Performance of faults, wells Status of Knowledge About CCS**Carbon Capture and Storage

3. Sources of Knowledge • IPCC Special Report on Geologic Storage • Rapidly evolving field, IPCC report used only peer reviewed literature • US and international networks • NETL updates www.netl.doe.gov/publications/carbon_seq/ • CO2 GeoNet www.co2geonet.com/ • CCP www.co2captureproject.org • IEA Greenhouse http://www.co2captureandstorage.info • Large number of meetings • examples: GHGT, NETL annual CCS meeting, EPA working groups, IEA GHG R&D Networks

4. Contributions to Knowledge From Selected Field Projects US DOE RCSP projects Otway

5. Well known performance of shale seals in trapping oil and gas, Texas Gulf Coast Observed performance of siltstones in retarding CO2 migration, Utsira FM, Sliepner field, North Sea Shale seals In white Top seal Bright injected CO2 in sand Light siltstone baffles Sandstones Cornelius Reservoir Markham No. Bay City No. field Tyler and Ambrose (1986) http://www.bgs.ac.uk/science/co2/Sleipner_figs_02.html Trapping Mechanisms: Structural Traps Successful use of 4-D seismic for monitoring CO2 plume

6. Trapping: Regional Setting of Utsira Source: SACS Best Practices Manual http://www.co2store.org/TEK/FOT/SVG03178.nsf/Attachments/SACSBestPractiseManual.pdf/$FILE/SACSBestPractiseManual.pdf

7. Frio Brine Pilot Sitetwo test intervals Injection interval • Injection intervals: mineralogically complex Oligocene fluvial and reworked fluvial sandstones, porosity 24%, permeability 4.4 to 2.5 Darcys • Steeply dipping 11 to 16 degrees • Seals  numerous thick shales, small fault block • Depth 1,500 and 1657 m • Brine-rock system, no hydrocarbons • 150 and 165 bar, 53 -60 degrees C, supercritical CO2 Fresh water (USDW) zone protected by surface casing Injection zones: First experiment 2004: Frio “C” Second experiment 2006 Frio “Blue” Oil production

8. In context of the plume, injection was in an open aquifer Trapping Mechanism:Frio Site Reservoir Model Fault planes Porosity Observation well Injection well Monitoring injection and monitoring Knox, Fouad, Yeh, BEG

9. Phase-trapped CO2 Injection of CO2 Two-Phase Residual Gas Trapping Imbibition Drainage Grains Brine – filled pores

10. Representative realistic imbibition and drainage curves for two-phase flow

11. CO2 Trapping as a Residual Phase Residual gas saturation of 5% • Plume in open aquifer spreads quickly updip • Plume in an open aquifer is trapped before it moves very far Observation well Injection well Residual gas saturation of 30% TOUGH2 simulations C. Doughty LBNL

12. Aquifer wells (4) Downhole P&T Monitoring Using Oil-field Type Technologies is Successful in Tracking CO2 Gas wells Access tubes, gas sampling Frio Brine Pilot: Determine the subsurface distribution of injected CO2 using diverse monitoring technologies Downhole sampling U-tube Gas lift Wireline logging Radial VSP Cross well Seismic, EM Tracers

13. RST logs Tubing hung seismic source and hydrophones Monitoring Design Frio 2 Injection Well Observation Well U-tubes 50 m Packers Downhole P and T Frio “Blue” Sandstone 15m thick

14. Injection well Observation well

15. Real-time Downhole Pressure and Temperature Monitoring CO2 breakthrough

16. Measurement of Perminace

17. Los Alamos National Laboratory West Pearl Queen • Injection interval 7 m arkosic sandstone, oil reservoir, Permian Queen Formation • 18% porosity, 5 -30 md • Structural dome trap - carbonate/evaporite seals • Depth - 1350 m • 96 bar • CO2 trapped by residual saturation + dissolution in water and oil • 62% retainedunder production Representative of the Permian Basin Bill Cary

18. Trapping Dissolution of CO2 into Brine 1yr 40 yr 930 yr 1330 yr 5 yr 130 yr 30 yr 330 yr 2330 yr Jonathan Ennis-King, CO2CRC Jonathan Ennis-King, CSIRO Australia

19. Trapping: Frio Tracer Breakthough Curves Show Significant Dissolution of CO2 into Brine Barry Friefeld, LBNL; Tommy Phelps ORNL

20. Setting the Standard for Monitoring:IEA Weyburn project • Devonian Midale carbonate • Successful semi-quantitative monitoring of CO2 plume migration using 4-D seismic: 20% P-wave difference post injection IEA Weyburn CO2 Storage and Monitoring Project

21. Combining CO2 storage research with oil production • Large, high technology, well-supported research Phase I , $21 M, numerous international partners • Complex environment containing oil, production, field operations Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC) Encana, governments University, Provincial, private

22. No Suitable Method for Detecting Slow Leakage • Current monitoring: noise is large, precision is moderate • If flux is low, .01 to 1 % of stored volume/year • Cumulative impact to atmosphere would be unacceptable Weyburn Soil Gas Survey

23. Monitoring Techniques at Nagaoka site: injection into a heterogeneous rock volume • Pleistocene Haizume Fm: 12 m thick mineralogically immature submarine sandstone • 10’s mD core analysis, <10 mD hydrologic test, about 20% porosity • 15 degree dip on flank of anticline • 10,400 tones CO2 Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE) and collaborators http://uregina.ca/ghgt7/PDF/papers/nonpeer/273.pdf

24. Monitoring using cross well-seismic at Nagaoka site • Logging though non-metallic casing using induction, neutron, sonic detected breakthough after injection 4000 tones 40 m away • Cross well tomography imaged plume but failed to detect breakthough • 4-D seismic suggests strongly anisotropic CO2 movement http://www.rite.or.jp/English/about/plng_survy/todaye/todaytre/RTtr_co2seq.pdf

25. Subsurface Monitoring Above Injection Zones – a Proposed Solution to Complexity • Close to perturbation • Quiescent relative to the surface • High signal to noise ratio Atmosphere Biosphere Vadose zone & soil Aquifer and USDW Seal Monitoring Zone Seal CO2 plume

26. A) Adequacy of Modeling: CO2 Saturation Observed with Cross-well Seismic Tomography vs. Modeled: Frio example Observation well 100 ft Cross-Well Seismic Tomogram Injection well (B) X-well is a cross section of the plume Tom Daley and Christine Doughty LBNL

27. Adequate US Storage Volume: Preliminary “Fairways” Map Complex geology No inventory attempted

28. Low Permeability is Typical:more studies needed in tight rocks Hydraulic conductivity m/day <.0.01 .01-0.1 0.1 -1 1 – 10 >10 Mixed data types – core, well tests, and models

29. Inject 1 million tones/year of CO2 from gas processing facility Injection into water leg of same reservoir 800 m-ling horizontals 5-10 mD Pennsylvanian sandstone Injection underway Large monitoring project mobilized – 4-D seismic, soil gas, microseismic array Successful Use of Horizontal Well Technology in Low Permeability Sandstones – BP In Salah Project, Algeria Ian Wright, BP http://ior.rml.co.uk/issue11/events/past/spe/

30. Example of the Global Question of Capacity: Deccan Traps, India PNNL and Geothermal Energy India.

31. Layered Basalt – Role for Geochemical Trapping? • Thick section – > 2000 m, large volume • Layered lower and higher permeability • Seal performance is uncertain • High reactivity with CO2 - formation of minerals • So could CO2 be retained long enough to be trapped by mineral reactions? Fill and Spill with reaction with Basalt An example of need for assessment of quality and quantity of geologic storage outside of the US

32. Otway Basin Project -Australia • Planned injection of 100,000 tones of natural CO2 into Cretaceous Warre sandstone depleted gas reservoir • Large volume injection • Fault seal – will test fault stability under injection • Test monitoring in the presence of gas

33. Substitute underground injection for air release Escape to groundwater, surface water, or air via long flowpath Earthquake Escape of CO2 or brine to groundwater, surface water or air through flaws in the seal Failure of well cement or casing resulting in leakage Well Understood Risk:Unexpected Results of Injection

34. Risk in Terms of Exceeding Capacity • Spill from structure • Exceed fracture pressure of seal • Far-field effects – leakage of brine from injection interval Reservoir Large scale-up Very large scale-up

35. Well Known Trapping mechanisms Monitoring strategies to image and quantify plume evolution Validity of modeling approaches – modification of existing simulators Major leakage risks Volume of storage US, Australia, Japan, Europe Poorly Known Modeling/monitoring in low permeability rocks Monitoring to detect low rates of leakage over long time frames Performance of non-matrix systems (coal, basalt) Risks resulting from very large scale-up Volume of storage in developing nations Performance of faults, wells Status of Knowledge About CCS