Modelling CO2 Injection and Storage

IEA-GHG CCS Summer School

Nottingham, UK, 21-26 July 2013

Philip Ringrose, Statoil

Special thanks to colleagues in Statoil CO2 Storage R&D Project,
the In Salah JIP (BP, Statoil, Sonatrach) & Permedia Research
Geological Storage of CO2
1. The basic concept is to store captured CO2 underground in reservoirs
that would otherwise contain water, oil or gas
2. We need to be deep (greater than 800m) to ensure CO2 is in a dense
form the super-critical phase
3. These are also the depths where we are confident that natural gas has
been trapped for millions of years
4. But the big questions are:
Where do we store it? Reservoir modelling is
the way we quantify
How much CO2 can we inject? the answers to these
Can we store it safely? engineering questions

Can we store it cost-effectively?

IEAGHG CCS Summer School, July 2013 2

Outline

1. Why model? Capacity

(The purpose of modelling)
2. What do we need to model?
(Physics, chemistry, geology)
Injectivity
3. What are the elements of modelling?
(Tools, concepts)
4. Some examples
(What factors turn out to be important) Containment

IEAGHG CCS Summer School, July 2013 3

Why model?
Whenclimatescientiststriedto
explaintomanagementthattheir
longtermforecastswerehighly
uncertain,thereplycamethat...
Thedirectorgeneralisquite
awarethatyourpredictionsare
meaningless...
...butheneedsthemforplanning
purposes.
Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of
Risk, by Peter L. Bernstein, 1998.

IEAGHG CCS Summer School, July 2013 4

Why model?

CO2 modeller
in search of a
site to match
his model...

The purpose of modelling is:

To capture knowledge of the subsurface in a quantitative form
in order to make engineering decisions.
We cannot predict but we can make good estimates of the likely
outcomes modelling is a form of forecasting

IEAGHG CCS Summer School, July 2013 5

What do we need to model?
CO2 phase behaviour
Multi-phase flow Quick Group
exercise -
CO2 dissolution in brine Decide on your
Rock architecture (permeability, porosity) Top 3 issues
Unexpected barriers and faults
Rock-fluid interactions (surface chemistry)
Rock mechanical effects
Topography of top reservoir surface
Well design and engineering Review your answer after
Numerical representations of flow processes the case studies ...

Effects of compositional impurities in gas or brine phase

...

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What are the modelling elements?
1. A numerical representation of subsurface geology
Geological reservoir modelling
Complex and time-consuming workflows
2. Appreciation of the relevant physics and chemistry
High-school and grad school text-books (maybe even Wiki!)
Back of the envelop estimates (know what you are modelling)
3. Maths and computation:
Appreciate what the software package is trying to do
Read the manual

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Geological Controls
Effects of reservoir geology on CO2 injection and
storage are critical (but difficult to quantify)
Good appreciation of geology is essential

Lamina-scale permeability Normal fault gouge with Tidal Delta Sedimentary Architecture
variations (Tilje Fm., Norway) clay smear (Sinai, Egypt) (Niell Klinter Formation, Greenland)

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Pore-space Characterisation
Core analysis, thin section, backscatter scanning electron microscopy (BSEM)
mineralogical studies and pore-scale modelling are used to map the pore-space
Examples from Lopez et al 2011

Mineral identification Pore Network Modelling

Grain characterisation (BSEM) 1

(cathodoluminescence) krw
kro
data krw
0.8 data kro

0.6

Rel Perm
0.4

0.2

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1

Sw

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Fluid-rock interactions
Some geochemical studies at the In Salah site show that CO2-rich brines react to
create Fe-carbonate cements similar to natural cementation processes
Its complicated but the system seems to be self-healing
See Carroll et al. (2011)

Cemented fracture In Salah (JIP1) Ankerite fracture fill

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Chlorite grain coatings
 Structural geological model
Example workflow Krechba
Tools : GoCad > RMS > Eclipse > Abacus > Fraca+
See Iding & Ringrose, 2010

Fractured rock
property model
(effective
permeability)

Reservoir simulation
(pressure and flow)

Geomechanical model (stress & strain)

IEAGHG CCS Summer School, July 2013 11
Example Property Modelling
(Krechba, preliminary test case)

Seismic porosity estimate

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Example Property Modelling
(Krechba, preliminary test case)

Co-simulated porosity wells and seismic

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Example Property Modelling
(Krechba, preliminary test case)

Co-simulated permeability
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Appreciation of the relevant flow physics
There are essentially three sets of
Gravity dominated
forces pushing the fluids around:
Gravity
(e.g. gas likes floating on top of water)

Capillary
(e.g. water soaks into the smaller pores)

Viscous [applied pressure]

(e.g. engineers like pumping at wells)
Viscous Capillary
Reality ?
dominated dominated

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Multiphase Flow (101)
For two-phase immiscible flow (e.g. gas and water), the two-phase Darcy
equation and an interfacial pressure equation are used:

uo = -k krg / g . (Pg + ggz)

k is absolute permeability tensor
uw = -k krw / w . (Pw + wgz)
kkrg could be replaced by
Pc = Pg - Pw kg the phase permeability tensor
where

g and w refer to the oil and water phases,

P is the pressure
krw and krg are the relative permeabilities gradient
and are viscosity and density. dP dP dP

P
Pc is the capillary pressure dx dy dz

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Relative Permeability Basics
The most common functions used for relative permeability are the
Corey exponent functions:
x
kro = A(1-Swn) Sleipner Ref. Model 2010
SPE 134891
krw = B(Swn)y 1

Relative Permeability
where Sn is the normalized saturation,
Swn = (Sw-Swc)/(Swor-Swc)

Typical values for a water-wet light oil would be krw

3
kro = 0.85(1-Swn)
3 krg
krw = 0.3(Swn)
0 1
Water Saturation
Functions for CO2-brine systems are much debated
Stanford Rel perm explorer is a useful took:
[Link]

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The Capillary Pressure Curve
The capillary pressure curve is a summary of fluid-fluid interactions
By definition, Pc = Pnon-wetting phase - Pwetting-phase [Pc = f(S)]
But note that Pc is the difference between gas/oil and water pressure across all
the oil/water interfaces within the porous medium

1000

Small pores

100
0.5mD

Pc (psi)
50mD Medium pores Capillary Entry
10
Pressure, Pe

1000mD
1
Large pores
Measured Pc Non-wetting
(after Neasham, 1977; SPE 6858) phase invades
0.1 largest pores first
1 PV occupied 0

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Maths & Computation
Defining an appropriate grid
for simulation is a difficult task
requiring care and experience

You need to:

1. Appreciate what the software
package is trying to do:
e.g. estimate fluxes between
grid centres across cell faces
(finite difference, 5-point stencil)
2. Read the manual...
... which is usually out of date so ask someone
who has most recently used that function!
3. Learn to differentiate between good enough and wildly inaccurate

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Example flow grid
Snhvit fault sensitivity test case
CO2 plume distribution for
different fault seal cases
Thanks to Statoil Summer Student Project,
Laure-Hlne Garaffa (U. Nancy)

3D grid connections across fault

With fault juxtaposition but no seal With disconnected faults

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Case Studies (Sleipner, In Salah)
Sleipner Overview:
CO2 from the Sleipner field is stored in the
Utsira Formation, North Sea.
Reservoir unit at 800-1100 m depth.
One CO2 injector.
Injected gas is ~98% CO2.
14 Million tons CO2 have been injected
(Jan 2013).
Wellhead pressure stable at ~65 bar
Wellhead temperature held at 25oC
Some key refs Hansen et al 2005, Chadwick
et al. 2010.

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CO2 Injection and Phase Behaviour

1000

wellhead
Solid Supercritical

reservoir
Liquid

100 Sleipner In Salah

Pressure (bars)

Critical point

Gas
10
Supercritical CO2 =
Gas-like compressibility but
liquid-like density
1
-100 -50 0 50 100
Temperature (Celcius)

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CO2 Dissolution
CO2 dissolution in brine has an important potential to assist and stabilise long-term
storage, but estimates of the effect vary enormously
We know that convective mixing >> molecular diffusion
The diffusive boundary level needs to achieve a critical thickness before
convection can occur
Critical time (tc) for onset of convection and the characteristic wavelength (c) are
estimated to be in the range of:
10 days < tc < 2000 Years
0.3 m < c< 200 m

CO2 Concentration
Riaz et al., 2006.

Scope for reducing these ranges using:

Field Case Histories
Large-scale lab experiments
Good geological models Density-driven flow in CO2 storage in saline
aquifer, Pau et al, 2010.

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Density Functions for Pure CO2

Sleipner conditions make

CO2 density especially
poorly constrained

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 Time-lapse seismic data 1994
Sleipner 4D Seismic

2001

Utsira Fm.

CO2 plume in map view 2008

Focus on
Uppermost Layer 9

2008-1994

IEA-GHG CCS Summer School, August 2010 25

IEAGHG CCS Summer School, July 2013
Sleipner Modelling Insights
Initial models built from pre-injection seismic:
Coarse grid simulations which indicated a circular, dispersed plume.
4D monitoring data indicates a northerly extension to the plume propagation.
IP modeling (Permedia Migration tool) gave closer matches to the seismic,
indicating a dominance of gravity/buoyancy forces over viscous forces.
Adjusted inputs to conventional reservoir simulations in order to capture enhanced
gravity segregation and understand physio-chemical prosesses:
Gives better matches to seismic
Shows importance of Vertical Equilibrium (VE) assumption
Suggests dissolution was previously overestimated
Results presented in SPE Paper 134891, Singh et al, 2010.

IEAGHG CCS Summer School, July 2013 26

Sleipner Layer 9 - Modelling in Eclipse
Objectives:
Study of sensitivities (using closure height conditioning)
Focus on modeling enhanced gravity segregation
Examples from 50x50x5m grid case
Seismic

Lab Rel. Straight Line With VE

Perms Rel. perms. (Lab rel. perms)

0 Gas Saturation 1
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Sleipner CO2 Plume (2008)
Example Invasion Percolation
Simulation (Migration) from
Cavanagh (2013).
Gravity dominated storage is
observed, closely hugging top
topography
Good match of this behavior with
Migration Simulator (MGN)
But gravity-capillary equilibrium
model tends to over-predict
northern extension
Detailed match sensitive to spill
point topography

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Sleipner CO2 Plume (2002)
On the shorter timeframe Black-oil simulator (CO2BOS) with Vertical Equilibrium
option gives a good match
Migration Simulator (MGN) clearly over-predicts northern extension

Main Findings
CO2 plume modeling
requires high-res
gravity-dominated flow
models:
VE Solution
(Short term)
IP Migration
(Long term)

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Sleipner Modelling: Lessons Learned
Detailed analysis of Sleipner Layer 9 (uppermost) reveals strong gravity
segregation and plume thinning
IP Migration gives a good match to northern plume extension
Use of Vertical (gravity) Equilibrium improves Eclipse simulator match
Default simulators have too much dispersion and CO2 dissolution

Some viscous Thin diffusive Gravity segregation

forces boundary layer

Viscous u x o Gravity g z
x 0 1
Capillary k x (dPc / dS ) Capillary (dPc / dS )

Long-term predictions and capacity estimates need to be based on models verified

with short-term monitoring data (5 to 15 years)

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In Salah: An Overview
CO2 from several gas fields has
been stored in the aquifer
(Carboniferous) at Krechba

Kb-503
Storage unit is 1880m deep,
20m thick
5 gas producers and 3 CO2
injectors
Kb-14 Kb-502

3 long-reach horizontal wells (up

Kb-11 to 1800m horizontal sections)
Initial reservoir conditions:
Kb-12 P= 175 bars
T = 95oC
3.8 Mt CO2 has been injected
Kb-15
(2004-2011)
Kb-501
Kb-13 See Ringrose et al., (2009, 2013)

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Monitoring Programme Design
Wide range of monitoring data collected
(see Mathieson et al. 2010):
Time lapse (3D/4D) seismic
Wellhead measurements
Subsurface data
Shallow observation wells
Surface gas measurements
Satellite InSAR Surveys

IEAGHG CCS Summer School, July 2013

InSAR and geomechanics
Map of surface uplift
Interferometric Synthetic Aperture
May 20mm
Radar (InSAR) data allows mm-
2009 uplift
changes in ground surface elevation
to be monitored
Has proven especially valuable at the
In Salah CCS site (dry rock desert)
Applicable to most onshore sites
By combining satellite data with rock
mechanical models, we can use Modelled rock strain (section)
InSAR to monitor the sub-surface
pressure field related to CO2 injection
Addresses a key question for CO2
Storage pressure management Injection
Unit

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Geomechanical Model with damage zones
From Gemmer et al. (2012) - Reference case elastic properties

Vertical surface displacements (m)

KB-503 KB-502
Vertical displacement,

0.020

0.015
Uz (m)

0.010

0.005

0.000
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000
Distance (m)

Vertical displacements (m)

Horizontal displacements (m)

In Salah Modelling: Lessons Learned
Pioneering use of satellite InSAR reservoir monitoring technology
revealing mm-scale surface deformation
Important new insights into rock mechanical deformation in response to
CO2 injection (and gas production)
Surface response is best understood using:
detailed geomechanical model
combined effects of a fault/fracture and reservoir compartment
Integration is a key:
Space technology, geophysics, rock mechanics,
geology, reservoir engineering and well technology

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 Modelling and Data Integration
Goals of modelling activities:
Understand the processes in the storage unit:
Injectivity and storage capacity
Model potential migration out of the storage unit:
Long-term storage containment
Develop improved models and forecasts:
Best available oil industry modeling tools
State-of-the art research codes
Integration has been a key factor:
Geology rock mechanics flow dynamics
Monitoring datasets with subsurface models

36
Summary
1. Why model?
In order to make engineering decisions
2. What do we need to model?
Physics, chemistry and geology
3. What are the elements of modelling?
Develop Concepts > Know the Tools
4. Some examples:
Learning the important factors & effects

IEAGHG CCS Summer School, July 2013 37

Challenges for Long-term Forecasting
So what are the main challenges?
Time-trap Map Near-critical
(based on early-mover project experience) fluid
High-res flow
properties
modelling History Forecast Long-term uncertainty
1.0
CO2 migration into
0.9
secondary storage Dissolution
0.8 domain rates and
Subsurface CO2

0.7 length scales

Fraction of

CO2 in primary
0.6 reservoir/aquifer
0.5 (mobile phase)
Inversion of
0.4 geophysical
0.3 monitoring
0.2 Geochemical reactions
Residual CO2
0.1 (immobile) Geochemistry
Rock
0.0
mechanical & pore-scale
0.5

10
6
0

100

1000

10000
response processes
Years

IEAGHG CCS Summer School, July 2013 38

 Thank you

CO2 Injection and Storage

Philip Ringrose
phiri@[Link]
[Link]

IEAGHG CCS Summer School, July 2013 39

 References
Bond, C. E., Wightman, R., Ringrose, P. S., 2013. The influence of fracture anisotropy on CO2 flow.
Geophysical Research Letters, 40, 1284-1289. DOI: 10.1002/grl.50313
Carroll, S., Walt McNab, Sharon Torres, Mike Singleton, Pihong Zhao, Wellbore integrity in carbon
sequestration environments: 1. Experimental study of CementSandstone/ShaleBrineCO2, Energy
Procedia, 4, 5186-5194 (GHGT-10).
Cavanagh, A., 2013. Calibration and prediction of the Sleipner CO2 plume from 2006 to 2012. 11th Int.
Conference on Greenhouse Gas Technology (GHGT11), 18th-22nd November 2012, Kyoto, Japan.
[Link]
Chadwick, A., Clochard, V., Delepine, N., and others, 2010. Quantitative analysis of time-lapse seismic
monitoring at the Sleipner CO2 storage operation. The Leading Edge, 29 (2). 170-177.
Gemmer, L., Hansen, O., Iding, M. Leary, S. and Ringrose, P., 2012. Geomechanical Response to CO2
injection at Krechba, In Salah, Algeria. First Break, 30, 79-84.
Hansen, H., Eiken, O. and Aasum, T.O. 2005. Tracing the Path of Carbon Dioxide from a Gas/Condensate
Reservoir, Through an Amine Plant and Back into a Subsurface Aquifer - Case Study: The Sleipner Area,
Norwegian North Sea. Paper SPE 96742 presented at Offshore Europe, 6-9 September 2005, Aberdeen,
United Kingdom.
Iding, M. & Ringrose, P., 2010. Evaluating the impact of fractures on the performance of the In Salah CO2
storage site. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, 4, 242248.
Lopez, O., Idowa, N., Strer, S., Rueslatten, H., Boassen, T., Leary, S. & Ringrose, P., 2011. Pore-scale
modelling of CO2-brine Flow Properties at In Salah, Algeria. Energy Procedia, Volume 4, 3762-3769.
Mathieson, A., Midgley, J., Dodds, K., Wright, I., Ringrose, P. and Saoula, N., 2010. CO2 sequestration
monitoring and verification technologies applied at Krechba, Algeria. The Leading Edge (February 2010),
216-221.

IEAGHG CCS Summer School, July 2013 40

References
Pau, G.S.H., Bell, J. B., Pruess, K., Almgren, A. S. Lijewski, M. J. and Zhang, K., 2010. High-resolution
simulation and characterization of density-driven flow in CO2 storage in saline aquifers. Advances in
Water Resources, 33 (4), 443-455.
Riaz, A., Hesse, M. Tchelepi, H. A. & Orr, F. M., 2006. Onset of convection in a gravitationally unstable
diffusive boundary layer in porous media. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 548, 87-111.
Ringrose, P., Atbi, M., Mason, D., Espinassous, M., Myhrer, ., Iding, M., Mathieson, A. & Wright, I.,
2009. Plume development around well KB-502 at the In Salah CO2 Storage Site. First Break, 27, 81-85.
Ringrose, P. S., Mathieson, A. S., Wright, I. W., Selama, F., Hansen, O., Bissell, R., Saoula, N. & Midgley,
J. 2013. The In Salah CO2 storage project: lessons learned and knowledge transfer. 11th Int. Conference
on Greenhouse Gas Technology (GHGT11), 18th-22nd November 2012, Kyoto, Japan.
[Link]
Singh, V., Cavanagh, A., Hansen, H., Nazarian, B. Iding, M. and Ringrose, P., 2010. Reservoir modeling
of CO2 plume behavior calibrated against monitoring data from Sleipner, Norway. SPE paper 134891
presented at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Florence, Italy, 1922
September 2010.
Vasco D. W., Ferretti A., Novali F. 2008. Reservoir monitoring and characterization using satellite
geodetic data: Interferometric synthetic radar observations from the Krechba field, Algeria, Geophysics,
73 (6), WA113WA122
Vasco, D. W., Rucci, A., Ferretti, A., Novali, F., Bissell, R. C., Ringrose, P. S. Mathieson, A. S. and
Wright, I. W., 2010. Satellite-based measurements of surface deformation reveal fluid flow associated with
the geological storage of carbon dioxide. Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 37, L03303.

IEAGHG CCS Summer School, July 2013 41