Newsletter from the SUCCESS centre – June 2014 – no. 14

ful newsAnnual report 2013

Geological storage is a key“Geological storage is the key to many, maybe most CCS projects. And Norway has a huge storage potential”, says professor Niels Peter Christensen in the 2013 An-nual report of the SUCCESS center now available.

Christensen, a chief geologist at Gassnova, also states that “Carbon Capture and Storage is a necessary tool as long as modern society is dependent on fossil fuels”. Our center aims at being an high quality tool in making the CCS tool efficient and safe.

In our 44 page Annual report you may read about our efforts in research, collaboration, education and outreach last year.

Please download the report from http://fme-success.no/index.cfm?id=364686.

Sylvain Thibeau, a CO2 Geological Storage Expert at Total, is a new member of the SUCCESS SAC.

Sylvain is a former physics student of Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, holding a PhD from University of Paris 6 on Numerical Fluid Dynamics. He joined TOTAL in 1993. Since 2001, he has focused primarily on CO2 geological storage. He is the author of around 20 publications on this topic, and one of the lead editors of the book Best Practice for the Storage of CO2 in Saline Formations, summarizing the findings of Sleipner CO2 storage operation and the CO2Store project in 2008.

We heartily welcome Sylvain on board. At the same time we thank Claus Otto for his efforts in the committee. Claus has left us, as his new work place (Australia) makes it difficult to follow up the SAC work.

SUCCESS Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC)

Sylvain Thibeau new member

The 4th EAGE CO2 Geological Storage Work-shop, titled Demonstrating storage integrity and building confidence in CCS, was held at Stavanger April 22–24, 2014, and organized by European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers. The workshop was well attended and gave the opportu-nity to learn many new issues in regards to Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). Mainly sponsored by Statoil and Gassnova, the workshop attracted around 100 participants from 15 countries. The accepted papers and posters addressed the current state of the art with respect to the overall integrity of a CO2 storage, through subsurface formation characterization, reservoir and well capabilities, enhancement of CO2 storage capacity, monitoring of the storage complex, de-signing and implementing remedial and mitigation actions in case on an undesired CO2 leakage, and considering HSE impacts of CO2 storage. The conference kicked off with a keynote speech from Statoil geology specialist Phillip Ringrose, who reviewed three general solutions to resolve the economics, capacity and safety barri-ers toward realizing and implementing large-scale CO2 storage projects. The morning session on the first day of the workshop focused on demonstrating capacity and containment. This session closed with a very relevant talk to my research on “simulation of CO2 injection in depleted gas reservoir” given by Dr. Simon Mathias from Durham University. In

the coffee break we had some discussions around simulation of salt precipitation in porous media and different up-scaling methods. The afternoon session on storage management and utilization opened with a keynote speech by Dag Nummedal from Colorado Energy Research Institute (a member of the SUCCESS Scientific Advisory Committee) on how to make fossil ener-gy more sustainable. I gave my own talk in this session – on the re-cent advances in SAFT equation of state for CCS. A number of questions from the audience followed after my talk; some of them really constructive. One of the most important feedbacks was about the verification of the developed SAFT model of CO2–CH4–Water with new experimental data. SUCCESS scientific leader Ivar Aavatsmark from Uni Research also suggested a connection with a German research centre in order to obtain some experimental data. Closing the afternoon session, a one-hour poster gathering was held, a good opportunity to directly talk with researchers who are working on the relevant areas with me. For example, I meet with Min Jin from Heriot-Watt University who was working on the effect of the facies architecture on the injectivity of CO2. This is the same area as Anja Sundal and I are working in, in Oslo. The first day of the conference finished with a dinner held in the Oil Museum of Stavanger. During the workshop, I got to know a number

Attending the 4th EAGE Geological CO2 Storage Workshop

Learning lessons – building networksINJECT PhD student Rohaldin Miri was one of many SUCCESS researchers that participated at the EAGE Workshop in Stavanger in April. This is his report.

of academics from different parts of the world. Some of them have very close research interests with me. For example, I met Dr. H.A. Amiri, a postdoc researcher, and PhD student R. Aska-rinezhad, both from University in Stavanger. Dr. Amiri is currently working as a laboratory expert in the university. I also met with Dr. Samir Bekri (IFP Energies nouvelles) who is working on the pore-scale modelling to simulate reactive flow in porous media. The second day of the workshop had two paral-lel sessions. The morning session presentations were mostly not relevant to my work. Therefore, I decided to visit the University of Stavanger. Dur-ing the visit Dr. Amiri showed me the laboratory facilities, including different flooding systems for CO2 injection, and measuring tools for relative permeability and capillary pressure. We also had an extensive discussion on mod-elling of the salt precipitation using COMSOL

software. We now are virtually (via the Internet) working together to produce outcomes on model-ling of capillary imbibition in porous media. At the afternoon session, UiO had another talk, on “layer specific CO2 Plume distributions and variability in mineralization potential”, given by SUCCESS scientific leader Per Aagaard. At the same time I was on the parallel session, listening to a talk by D.G. Hatzignatiou (IRIS) on the ma-ture oil field screening for CO2 EOR and storage. Now, I am in connection with his PhD student R. Askarinezhad on simulation of the core flooding CO2 experiments. The workshop closed with introducing the win-ners of The Best Poster Prize, Rita Sande Roed and Van Thi Hai Pham from the Norwegian Petro-leum Directorate (picture to the left). Van has her PhD from the RAMORE project under the SUC-CESS umbrella. Their poster discussed the CO2 Storage Atlas Norwegian Sea – A Case Study from the Froan Basin. The conference in general was a very enriching experience for me to attend, and listening to the high-quality presentations given over the two days of conference gave me some clues for rest of my research. I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to SUCCESS-INJECT which covered the cost of the trip. My appreciation should also go to Dr. H.A. Amiri for showing me his laboratory.

(Photos are taken from EAGE website)

Oral presentations• Generalized Cubic Equation of State – I. Aavatsmark (Uni)• Resistivity and Ultrasonic Velocity Measurements During

CO2–brine Drainage and Imbibition – Ø. Johnsen, M. Soldal, J. Park (all NGI), N.H. Mondol (UiO/NGI) & B. Alemu (Statoil)

• Developments in SAFT EOS for Carbon Capture and Storage (CSS) – R. Miri & H. Hellevang (both UiO)

• Fast Evaluation of Fluid-rock Coupling in CO2 Storage – T.I.B. Bjørnarå (Durham University/UiB/NGI), S.A.M. Mathias (Dur-ham), J.M. Nordbotten (UiB) & J. Park (NGI)

• In Situ Resistivity of CO2 Plume at Sleipner from CSEM and Gravity Data – J. Park, M. Vanneste, B. Bohloli, I. Viken & T.I. Bjørnarå (all NGI)

• On Layer Specific CO2 Plume Distributions and Variability in Mineralization Potential – A. Sundal, H. Hellevang, R. Miri & P. Aagaard (all UiO)

• Modelling Carbon Transformation at the sediment–water Interface – E.V. Yakushev (NIVA) & E.V. Protsenko (Shirshov Institute of Oceanology RAS)

• Fault Zone Development with Temporal Impact on Fluid Flow – Example from Navajo Sandstone, Utah – E. Skurtveit (Uni, NGI, UiB), A. Torabi (UiB), A. Braathen (UiO) & R. Alikarami (CIPR/UiB)

And we had several posters, too...

SUCCESS partner presentations at EAGE

CCOP CO2 Storage Mapping Program:

SUCCESS accompanied by a bad smell

SUCCESS (Subsurface CO2 Storage – Critical Elements and Superior Strategy) is one of several Norwe-gian centres for environment-friendly energy research, funded by the Norwegian Research Council and industry partners. For more info and contact address: www.fme-success.no.

To subscribe to this newsletter, please mail Charlotte.Krafft@cmr.no.

SUCCESS WP leader Helge Hellevang recently visited Malaysia to give lectures on CCS and CCS-EOR. Here is a brief report.

The 4th CCS-M (CCOP CO2 Storage Mapping Program) training course (T4) was held at Penang Island, Malaysia, May 27–30. The objective of T4 was to get a deeper understanding of the method-ologies and criteria for the selection of technically accessible storage resources and the use of CO2 for enhanced oil/gas recovery (EOR). Hands-on ex-ercises to assess and test the site selection criteria and storage estimation procedures were the main agenda items. A one-day field trip (May 30) was organized by PETRONAS to various interesting sites in Penang, including the famous Penang Hill and Fruit Farms. For more information on CCSM, visit http://www.ccop.or.th/ccsm/. Delegates from most South East Asian coun-tries were present, together with resource persons from a.o. Norway (NPD and FME SUCCESS) and Australia (Steve Whittaker and Rick Causebrook). Representing the Norwegian CCS commu-nity and FME SUCCESS, Helge Hellevang gave lectures on the general global status of CCS and CCS-EOR, and on the potential for large-scale

CCS in Europe and storage in the North Sea basins (The North Sea Central Storage Initiative). As most of the delegates already had a good overview of CCS, the lectures were fine teasers leading to good discussions on the future of CCS and CCS-EOR. The workshop was held in Unesco World Cul-tural Heritage listed Georgetown, famous for its large number of historical colonial buildings, and named by Lonely Planet #1 world food destination with the blend of Malay, thai, chinese, indian, and other cuisine. In addition to feasting on the local delicatesses, we were also encouraged to taste one of the locally grown fruits, Durian, famous for its nasty smell but in-credible good flavour. Jummy!

Course participants lined up; Helge standing in front line as no. 3 from the left.