Cranfield Large Scale CO2 Injection-- Monitoring 3.5 Million Tons

Susan Hovorka, PI

Ramón Treviño, project manager

Tip Meckel, geologist

Michael Young, Associate Director

Bureau of Economic Geology

Jackson School of Geosciences

The University of Texas at Austin

Carbon Storage R&D Project Review Meeting

Developing the Technologies and Building the Infrastructure

for CCUS : U.S. Department of Energy

National Energy Technology Laboratory

August 23, 2012

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Federal collaborators Via FWP

Separately funded Stanford, Princeton, U Edinburgh, UT PGE & ICES (CFSES), U. Tennessee, USGS RITE, BP, CCP , Durham, AWWA

2

Gulf Coast Carbon Center Bureau of Economic Geology

Jackson School of Geosciences The University of Texas at Austin

Sandia Technologies Monitoring Systems Design, Installation,

HS&E

Denbury Resources Field owner and injection system

design, management, 4-D

survey, HS&E

LBNL Well-based geophysics, U-tube and lab design

and fabrication

LLNL ERT

ORNL PFT, Stable isotopes

NETL Rock-water interaction

USGS Geochemistry

Environmental Information Volumes

Walden Consulting

SSEB

50 Vendors e.g. Schlumberger Vendors

e.g. local landman

Vendors e.g. equipment

MSU UMiss Hydro & hydrochem

Core Lab UT DoG

Anchor QEA

NRAP VSP&

analysis

SECARB Anthropogenic Test At Plant

Barry/Citronelle

Curtin University, Perth

Organization

Real-time monitoring – BHP, BHT, AZMI, DST

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

Mil

lio

n

metr

ic

ton

s C

O2

Baseline 3-D

Repeat 3-D

VSP

Cross well

Baseline

VSP

Cross well

Start DAS

injection

Start

Phase 3

injection Start

Phase 2

injection

Geochemical monitoring

1 million

ton/year

rate

Surface monitoring

Logging

5

4

3

2

1

0

Project Status

Research-based Cranfield Monitoring Plan

• Research-based: not regulatory- or risk-based

– Scoped, designed, and budgeted 2006, prior to regulation

– Operator holds risk

• Designed to respond to DOE programmatic questions

Lessons learned are derived products not processes to be duplicated

Cranfield Geologic Setting

Natchez

Mississippi

Mississippi River

Illustration by Tip Meckel

Oil and gas field

Discovery 1943

Depth 3000 m

15 m thick lower Tuscaloosa Fm.

Heterogeneous fluvial sandstones

Pipeline CO2 from Jackson Dome

@ 1 Million metric tones/year

Mississippi

DAS

Seismic line from 3-D survey, Cranfield reservoir, Mississippi

interpretation Tip Meckel BEG

Tu

scalo

os

a F

m

Tuscaloosa D-E oil reservoir

Oil-water contact

Tuscaloosa confining system

W E

Stacked Storage: Use in early stages (Now!) provides

access to long term storage

Step 1 Extract oil via

CO2 EOR with storage Step 2 Storage in

adjacent brine-filed

pore volumes

Regional Carbon Sequestration Program goal: Improve prediction of storage

capacities

7

Production history 37,590,000 Stock tank

barrels oil 672,472,000 MSCU

gas (Chevron, 1966)

7,754 acres x 90 ft net pay x 25.5% porosity

(Chevron, 1966)

Existing data

on reservoir

volumetrics

X E [pore volume occupancy (storage efficiency)] = Storage capacity

injection rate – limited by pressure response?

Measure saturation during multiphase plume evolution

Increase predictive capabilities by

validating numerical models

Observation: pore volume occupancy

was rate and dependent: not a

single number

Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership program

goal: Evaluate protocols to demonstrate that CO2 is

retained

Oil and gas trapped

over geologic time

High confidence in storage permanence through characterization

Uncertainty and risk assessment

P&A well performance in retention?

Limited analogy between injected and natural fluid retention

AZMI pressure

IZ pressure Microseismic

4-D Seismic 4-D VSP

Research

Questions

Selected

assessment

approach

Material Risk

of failing to

retain

Well-pad vadose

gas

Ground water chem.

shallow

deep

Semi-quantitative assessment

via Certification Framework

Off structure migration?

Response to pressure elevation?

Protocol

Sensitivity &

reliability

Monitoring layout

9

Phase II

Pipeline head&

Separation facility

5km

GIS base Tip Meckel, BEG

Psite

EGL-7

Detail Area

Study

(DAS)

Injector

Producer

(monitoring point)

Observation Well

4-D seismic

RITE Microseismic

Monitoring Innovations

• Groundwater monitoring

• Soil gas monitoring Aquifer and USDW

Atmosphere

Biosphere

Vadose zone

CO2 plume

Shallow groundwater

• Pressure in above-zone

monitoring interval

• Process-based vadose zone-

gas method

• In situ rock-water-CO2

interaction test.

• Contaminated site approaches

• Stacked storage demonstration

• Cross-well ERT at depth

• Bore hole gravity

• Methane exsolution

• RITE microseismic

Monitoring Design

Soil gas

Atmosphere

Area tested Whole plume Focus study

Not tested Not tested

Active and P&A well pads

Groundwater

Shallow production

AZMI

Injection zone

Not tested

EGL-7 UM test well, Push-pull test

Not tested

Not tested

Geochemistry breakthrough

Geo- mechanics

RITE micro seismic study

GMT(failed)

“P site” methodology assessment

Monitoring well at each injector

DAS pressure and EGL 7 pressure + fluids

DAS multi-well multi tool array

12

Detail Area

Study DAS

H Zeng, BEG 10cm

5km

Seismically non-unique interpreted form lines

Lower Tuscaloosa sand and conglomerate fluvial depositional environment

M. Kordi , BEG

Ambrose

Fluvial Facies concept

30-m apart

Time lapse seismic analysis DAS DAS

DAS

2007 Pre-injection 2010 1 year of injection about 1/4

million metric tons this area

Difference

Rui Zhang, CFSES & UTIG

Detailed Area Study (DAS) Injector

CFU 31F1

Obs

CFU 31 F2

Obs

CFU 31 F3

Above-zone

monitoring F1 F2 F3

Injection Zone

Above Zone Monitoring

10,500 feet BSL

Closely spaced

well array to

examine flow in

complex reservoir

68m

112 m

Petrel model Tip Meckel

Tuscaloosa D-E

reservoir

LLNL Electrical Resistance Tomography- changes in response with saturation

F2 F3

C. Carrigan, X Yang, LLNL

D. LaBrecque Multi-Phase Technologies

F1

Fluid sampling via U-tube yields data on flow processes

• Small diameter sampler with N2 drive brings fluids quickly and high frequency to surface with tracers intact

• High labor effort

• Unique data on fluid flow

UTDoG,

Adding tracer

As injection rate increased, plume thickness increased

112 m

Injection at 1/8 million ton/year

8 days

Injection at 1/4 million ton/year

4 days? 8 days

March-April 2010 tracer studies:

Jiemin Lu, Changbing Yang, GCCC

Tommy Phelps ORNL

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

-1.E-06

5.E-21

1.E-06

2.E-06

3.E-06

4.E-06

5.E-06

4/12 4/17 4/22 4/27 5/2 5/7 5/12 5/17 5/22 5/27

Kg/

min

Inj. rate

SF6

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

-1.E-06

0.E+00

1.E-06

2.E-06

3.E-06

4.E-06

4/12 4/17 4/22 4/27 5/2 5/7 5/12 5/17 5/22 5/27

Kg/

min

SF6

Inj. rate

CFU31F-2, 68 m away from injector

CFU31F-3, 112 m away from injector

Travel time = 317 h

Travel time = 319 h

SF6

SF6

2nd SF6 on May 9

255 h

Arrive on May 20

Arrive on May18 211 h

Jiemin Lu, GCCC

Continuous field data from dedicated monitoring well • Large perturbations obvious

• Even small perturbations observable (100’s tons/day flux from 1 km)

• Fault observed to be sealing

Meckel et al., in review

surface

Surface casing

Cemented in

Cement to

isolate

injection

zone

AZMI Above zone monitoring interval Time

Pre

ssu

re

Injection

zone

AMZI

Confining = No fluid communication

Using above AZMI pressure to assess storage permanence

Pressure Monitoring

CO2 Injection Zone

Above-Zone Monitoring Interval (AZMI) – leakage detection

Within Injection Zone (IZ) reservoir management

Daily injection rate

2000

1000

30 m

Metric ton/day

300

310

AZMI

bars

300

350

400

IZ

bars

T. Meckel BEG

Groundwater monitoring strategy

Characterize shallow groundwater geochemistry

Identify a set of geochemical parameters for detecting CO2 leakage

Lab experiments

Field experiments

(Push-pull tests)

Numerical modeling

Test and validation

Groundwater

chemistry

monitoring for

detecting CO2

leakage

Application

Changbing Yang BEG

Groundwater Monitoring

• Each injection well has a 200-300 ft deep groundwater well

• Quarterly geochemical monitoring by University of Mississippi,& Mississippi State

• Sensitivity studies: lab to field

CO2 injection

Changbing Yang,

BEG

Using a push-pull field test to validate models under insitu redox conditions

0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0 5000 10000 15000 20000

As

(µg

/l)

Water volume pumped out during the

pulling phase

Mixing Meas.

bkg. inj.

Changbing Yang, BEG (AWWA)

4.5

5.0

5.5

6.0

6.5

7.0

0 5000 10000 15000 20000

pH

Water volume pumped out during the

pulling phase

Mixing Meas.

bkg. inj.

Vadose Zone Monitoring via Process Accounting

Katherine Romanak BEG

Leak

Mask signal

Soil moisture

Soil carbonate

Dampen signal

Organics → CO2

Plant activity

Produce CO2

Concentrate CO2

Consume CO2

Disperse CO2

Produce,

consume,

redistribute

CO2

Background

“noise”

Weather fronts

Challenges to Near-Surface Monitoring

Stored CO2

Failed

containment

Vadose

zone

Katherine Romanak BEG

Soil gas composition - Unique leakage signal

CH4 < 34 vol. %

CO2 < 45 vol.

%

N2 42-85%

O2 2- 21%

Soil gas distribution

CH4+2O2 CO2+ 2H2O

CH2O+ 2O2 CO2+ H2O

Methane oxidation

Org. oxidation

Katherine Romanak BEG

CO2 concentrations at different depths CO2 concentration alone may not reliable indicator for leakage

detection

• CO2 concentrations show variations in depth, average CO2 conc.

~350 ppm in the atmosphere, ~630 ppm at depth of 1.5 m below

surface show, and ~99000 ppm at depth of 3 m over the

observation time period

12/3/09 0:00 1/22/10 0:00 3/13/10 0:00 5/2/10 0:00 6/21/10 0:00

300

400

500

600

700

800

CO

2 (

pp

m)

90000

100000

110000

120000

CO

2(p

pm

)

at 1.5m

at 3m

at atmosphere

Near-surface observatory

Katherine Romanak Changbing Yang

Remaining Activities

• Knowledge sharing – Technical and public and policy

• Analysis of data collected – Joint/comparative inversions

– NRAP

– SIM-SEQ

– Basic Energy Sciences – EFRC’s

• Continued data collection – Report volumes injected and pressure response

– Continue groundwater and soil gas observation

– EGL7 deconstruction (DOE-Schlumberger Carbon Services)

• RITE microseismic array – collect microseismic data

• Use of DAS obs. well for DOE-LBNL CO2 geothermal test

• Support for CCUS concept

Conclusions • Stacked Storage Demonstrated

• Project objectives attained

– Long term monitoring continues

• Innovative techniques for permanence assessment:

– AZMI pressure

– Groundwater testing to determine sensitivity

– Fixed gas soil gas method

• Capacity is rate dependent

Gulf Coast Carbon Center (GCCC)

Scott Tinker

Michael Young

Sue Hovorka

Tip Meckel

J. P. Nicot

Rebecca Smyth

Ramon Trevino

Sigrid Clift

Katherine Romanak

Seyyed Hosseini

Changbing Yang

Vanessa Nunez

Dave Carr

Brad Wolaver

Alex Sun

Jiemin Lu

Jong Won Choi

Ian Duncan

Carey King

Mehdi Zeidouni

students and others

LNL

LBNL

LLNL

ORNL

SNL

Mississippi State U

U of Mississippi

SECARB

UT-PGE

UT Chem-E

CFSES- BES

UT- CIEEP

UT- DoGS

BEG- CEE

JSG – EER

Univ. Edinburgh

Univ. Durham

RITE

CCP -BP

CO2-CRC

AWWA

Collaborators IA sponsors

China Petroleum

Co. Taiwan

Bibliography

Please see www.gulfcoastcarbon.org

“bookshelf”

Special volume of International Journal of

Greenhouse Gas Control on Cranfield.

33