Coupled Hydro-Mechanical Simulations of CO₂Storage Supported by Pressure Management Demonstrate Synergy Benefits from Simultaneous Formation Fluid Extraction

Abstract

-We assessed the synergetic benefits of simultaneous formation fluid extraction during CO 2 injection for reservoir pressure management by coupled hydro-mechanical simulations at the prospective Vedsted storage site located in northern Denmark. Effectiveness of reservoir pressure management was investigated by simulation of CO 2 storage without any fluid extraction as well as with 66% and 100% equivalent volume formation fluid extraction from four wells positioned for geothermal heat recovery. Simulation results demonstrate that a total pressure reduction of up to about 1.1 MPa can be achieved at the injection well. Furthermore, the areal pressure perturbation in the storage reservoir can be significantly decreased compared to the simulation scenario without any formation fluid extraction. Following a stress regime analysis, two stress regimes were considered in the coupled hydro-mechanical simulations indicating that the maximum ground surface uplift is about 0.24 m in the absence of any reservoir pressure management. However, a ground uplift mitigation of up to 37.3% (from 0.24 m to 0.15 m) can be achieved at the injection well by 100% equivalent volume formation fluid extraction. Wellbased adaptation of fluid extraction rates can support achieving zero displacements at the proposed formation fluid extraction wells located close to urban infrastructure. Since shear and tensile failure do not occur under both stress regimes for all investigated scenarios, it is concluded that a safe operation of CO 2 injection with simultaneous formation fluid extraction for geothermal heat recovery can be implemented at the Vedsted site.Re´sume´-Des simulations du comportement hydrome´canique d'un re´servoir ge´ologique de stockage de CO 2 dans un contexte de gestion de la pression de´montrent les avantages de l'extraction de fluide de la formation au cours de l'injection du CO 2 -Au moyen de simulations hydrome´caniques couple´es mene´es sur le site de stockage prospectif Vedsted situe´au nord du Danemark, nous avons e´value´les avantages de l'extraction du fluide de la formation au cours de l'injection de CO 2 dans un but de gestion de la pression dans le re´servoir. L'efficacite´de la gestion de la Oil & Gas Science and Technology -Rev. IFP Energies nouvelles, Vol. 70 (2015), No. 4, pp. 599-613 Ó T. Kempka et al., published by IFP Energies nouvelles, 2014 DOI: 10.2516 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.pression du re´servoir a e´te´e´tudie´e par comparaison des simulations du stockage de CO 2 sans extraction de fluide avec celles associe´es a`une extraction d'un volume e´quivalent de fluide de la formation de 66 % et 100 % a`partir de quatre puits de´die´s a`la re´cupe´ration ge´othermique de chaleur. Les re´sultats des simulations montrent qu'une re´duction de la pression totale ...

Fault damage zone volume and initial salinity distribution determine intensity of shallow aquifer salinisation in subsurface storage

“…For this purpose, coupled hydro-mechanical simulations are applied to account for the interaction between hydraulic and mechanical processes, potentially triggering fault slip and dilation resulting in, e.g., new or enhanced leakage pathways for formation fluids. To minimise pressure perturbation due to fluid injection, and thus fault fluid flow, simultaneous fluid injection and production from storage reservoirs is discussed as one efficient mitigation measure to be applied in geological underground utilisation (Kempka et al, 2015b;Tillner et al, 2013b;Court et al, 2012;Bergmo et al, 2011;Buscheck et al, 2011).…”

How to Characterize a Potential Site for CO2Storage with Sparse Data Coverage – a Danish Onshore Site Case

“…Detailed description together with results of the coupled dynamic and geomechanical modeling can be found in Kempka et al (2015). It is found that no shear and tensile failures will occur under the injection operation and demonstrated that pressure control management can be achieved by active water production.…”

“…The number of wells and the well configuration must be optimized together with pressure control management. Active pressure control might be necessary by water production as studied by Kempka et al (2015).…”

An innovative computationally efficient hydromechanical coupling approach for fault reactivation in geological subsurface utilization

“…For the simulation of hydromechanical multiphase fluid flow processes in reservoirs, i.e., Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), numerical modelling is state of the art (Altmann et al, 2014;Cappa and Rutqvist, 2011;Kempka and Kühn, 2013;Rutqvist and Tsang, 2002;Rutqvist et al, 2007Rutqvist et al, , 2008Rutqvist, 2010). For that purpose, hydraulic multiphase flow and geomechanical simulators are sequentially coupled using one-way or two-way approaches (Settari and Mourits, 1994;Settari et al, 2005;Settari, 2012;Kempka et al, 2014Kempka et al, , 2015Tillner et al, 2014;Walters et al, 2002).…”