Opportunities for increasing CO2 storage in deep, saline formations by active reservoir management and treatment of extracted formation water: Case study at the GreenGen IGCC facility, Tianjin, PR China

Abstract

Carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) seeks beneficial applications for CO 2 recovered from fossil fuel combustion. This study evaluated the potential for removing formation water to create additional storage capacity for CO 2 , while simultaneously treating the produced water for beneficial use. The process would control pressures within the target formation, lessen the risk of caprock failure, and better control the movement of CO 2 within that formation. The project plans to highlight the method of using individual wells to produce formation water prior to injecting CO 2 as an efficient means of managing reservoir pressure. Because the pressure drawdown resulting from pre-injection formation water production will inversely correlate with pressure buildup resulting from CO 2 injection, it can be proactively used to estimate CO 2 storage capacity and to plan well-field operations. The project studied the GreenGen site in Tianjin, China where Huaneng Corporation is capturing CO 2 at a coal fired IGCC power plant. Known as the Tianjin Enhanced Water Recovery (EWR) project, local rock units were evaluated for CO 2 storage potential and produced water treatment options were then developed. Average treatment cost for produced water with a cooling water treatment goal ranged from 2.27 to 2.96 US$/m 3 (recovery 95.25%), and for a boiler water treatment goal ranged from 2.37 to 3.18 US$/m 3 (recovery 92.78%). Importance analysis indicated that water quality parameters and transportation are significant cost factors as the injection-extraction system is managed over time. The study found that in a broad sense, active reservoir management in the context of CCUS/EWR is technically feasible. In addition, criteria for evaluating suitable vs. unsuitable reservoir properties, reservoir storage (caprock) integrity, a recommended injection/withdrawal strategy and cost estimates for water treatment and reservoir management are proposed.

Assessing reservoir performance for geologic carbon sequestration in offshore saline reservoirs

“…14,21,22 Offshore commercial CO 2 storage projects such as Sleipner in the North Sea and Snøhvit in the Barents Sea demonstrate the feasibility of CO 2 storage in offshore saline reservoirs. 15,16,23 Previous simulation studies of offshore systems, including assessments of the GoM, 10,20,24 as well as other offshore basins [25][26][27] have further supported the feasibility of CCS in offshore saline environments. This study will build from these past works by studying how spatially variable permeability affects CO 2 storage in an offshore GoM sandstone system when the permeability distribution is spatially uncorrelated (random) and a priori unknown but constrained by field data from analogous GoM sandstone formations.…”

A Hierarchical Framework for CO2 Storage Capacity in Deep Saline Aquifer Formations

“…CCUS technologies can beneficially use CO 2 to recover useful underground resources (i.e., crude oil and saline water) that can generate incomes to offset the costs associated with CO 2 capture, compression, transportation, and geological injection process, and store the gas in the geological formation permanently (Damiani et al, 2012;Aminu et al, 2017). Among various components of CCUS technology, CO 2 capture and deep saline aquifer storage provide the largest identified storage potential to achieve CO 2 mitigation in energy and industrial sectors for at least a century (Kobos et al, 2011;Davies et al, 2013;Ziemkiewicz et al, 2016;Kelemen et al, 2019).…”

Energy and CO2 Emissions Penalty Ranges for Geologic Carbon Storage Brine Management

“…Clarifying the optimal role for GCS in decarbonization portfolios will require that we reduce this uncertainty through additional empirical research, as well as through incorporation of high resolution, site-specific data within systems-level integrated assessment models. Past technical and economic assessments of GCS and ACRM have necessarily focused on case studies characterizing the physics of the subsurface − and on developing generic process-based cost estimates. − There has been substantially less work integrating reservoir characteristics within carbon and brine management models to develop probabilistic ranges of the energy penalties associated with diverse management scenarios. Doing so is critical to focusing future research and informing decarbonization infrastructure investments.…”