PAPER 2009-197

Analysis of the Storage Capacity for

CO2 Sequestration of a Depleted
Gas Condensate Reservoir and a
Saline Aquifer
M.A. BARRUFET, A. BACQUET, G. FALCONE
Texas A&M University
This paper is accepted for the Proceedings of the Canadian International Petroleum Conference (CIPC) 2009, Calgary,
Alberta, Canada, 1618 June 2009. This paper will be considered for publication in Petroleum Society journals.
Publicationrightsarereserved.Thisisapreprintandsubjecttocorrection.

Abstract
Among the three types of geological CO2 sequestration (mature
oil and gas fields, unminable coal beds and deep saline formations),
depleted gas condensate reservoirs are particularly interesting.
Firstly, because of the high compressibility of gas, these reservoirs
have larger storage capacity than oil reservoirs or aquifers.
Secondly, the condensate that has dropped out from the gas phase
during natural depletion will re-vaporize due to re-pressurization of
the reservoir and by miscibility with the injected CO2. This
condensate can be recovered from producing wells and leaves more
pore volume for available for storage of CO2.
We analyzed the injection of a CO2-based stream into a
depleted gas condensate reservoir and into a saline aquifer using a
compositional reservoir simulation model.
The dynamics of the reservoir impose a minimum period of
injection that is required in order for the storage scheme to benefit
from 100% of the reservoir storage capacity. Hence, over and
above a certain CO2 injection rate, it becomes meaningless to

invest in bigger compressors to increase this rate to reduce the time

of injection.
When the CO2 stream contains impurities such as N2 or
methane, the storage capacity of the reservoir decreases
proportionally to the impure streams compressibility factor and its
concentration of impurities. This finding suggests that an economic
optimum between the costs of separation, compression and
injection can be determined.
Finally, the mass of CO2 sequestrated per pore volume in the
equivalent aquifer model is about 13 times lower that of the
depleted gas condensate reservoir model. This confirms that, due to
their low overall compressibility, aquifers offer a far lower ratio of
CO2 stored per pore volume than depleted gas condensate
reservoirs. However, aquifers tend to have a far larger extent,
which often compensates somewhat for this lower ratio and so
provides storage for significant volumes of CO2.

vs. pure CO2. This can help to determine the level of purity that a flue
gas has to attain after separation in order to make CCS an economic
proposition.

Design Considerations in CO2 Capture and

Storage Projects
In 1992, international concern about climate change led to the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC). The ultimate objective of that Convention is the
stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere
at a level that prevents dangerous anthropogenic interference with
the climate system. Depending on the scenario considered,
cumulative emissions of hundreds or even thousands of gigatonnes
of CO2 would need to be prevented during this century to stabilize
the CO2 concentration at 450 to 750 ppmv1. CO2 Capture and
Storage (CCS) could facilitate the achievement of stabilization
goals. CCS would be an option for countries that have significant
sources of CO2 suitable for capture, that have access to storage
sites and experience with oil or gas operations, and that need to
satisfy their development aspirations in a carbon-constrained
environment. Among the three main types of geological storage
(mature oil and gas fields, unminable coal beds and deep saline
formations), the injection of CO2 into depleted gas condensate
reservoirs is particularly interesting for two main reasons:
1. Depleted gas condensate and/or natural gas reservoirs have
larger storage capacity than oil reservoirs or aquifers. This is
due to the high compressibility of gas, which can be
approximately 30 times more compressible than oil and water
at typical reservoir pressures.
2. CO2 injection into depleted gas condensate reservoirs may
allow significant enhanced recovery of the condensate by liquid
re-vaporization and reservoir re-pressurization, which is in
effect a miscible drive mechanism.

Pressure diffusivity is typically 3 to 5 orders of magnitude larger than

molecular diffusivity, making re-pressurization occur much faster than
mixing by molecular diffusion. Therefore, when considering CO2
injection into depleted gas condensate fields it is important to evaluate
the effect of miscible mixing by dispersion, as a contribution from
convection and molecular diffusion, in a single phase flow. Injection
rates of CO2 should be designed by taking reservoir size into account as
large volume and large areal extent of gas condensate reservoirs tends
to decrease the potential for mixing by dispersion over practical time
scales.
Mineralization is the dissolution of the reservoir minerals via the
reduction in pH, which occurs with the dissolution of CO2 gas and
the subsequent precipitation of carbonate minerals. As this
mechanism is only really significant at very large time scales, this
was not taken into account in this study. Also, even though some of
the sequestered CO2 will dissolve in the aqueous phase and by
mineralization, these effects are not considered in our base run. The
purpose of this paper is to evaluate the injection of a CO2-based
stream in a depleted gas condensate reservoir or in an equivalent
aquifer. Table 1 summarizes the simulations conducted using a
compositional reservoir simulation model. The model presented
here has been deliberately simplified to satisfy the requirement for
an easily applied, relatively quick to compute and physically based
model that can be used to run many sensitivity studies. The bold
underlined text in Table 1 denotes base case scenario. Simulation
runs were designed to compare sequestration performance from:
impure CO2 streams, different injection rates, storage only vs.
enhanced condensate recovery (ECR) options, inclusion or
exclusion of molecular diffusion, and aquifer versus depleted gas
condensate reservoir.

CO2 sources are rarely pure; the most likely CO2 source could be a
stream extracted from the flue gas of a power plant. Flue-gas
composition from typical electric power generation plants depends
on the fuel type (bituminous coal, natural gas, wet feed of slurry
coal), the amount of excess air and the power generation scheme
(boiler, steam, and gas turbine types). A typical flue-gas
composition3 of an electric power plant based on a combustion
calculation for a Powder River Basin (PRB) coal, in a 500 MW
plant with 20% excess air is:

Reservoir and Fluid model

The reservoir fluid selected for this study is a gas condensate from
the Cusiana Field located 125 miles northeast of Bogot, Colombia,
in the Llanos basin4. We had an extensive compositional analysis
(up to C30+) of the condensate mixture along with constant
composition expansion, viscosity, and separator test experimental
data that were used to tune the equation of state model (EOS). We
used the Peng-Robinson EOS with volume translation. The
viscosity was calibrated using the Lorentz-Bray-Clark correlation6.
To reduce the computer storage requirements and the time of the
simulation we lumped the system into 7 components and pseudocomponents. In typical reservoir simulations CO2 could have been
grouped with ethane and N2 with methane, but in this study they
are kept separate to analyze the individual contributions of a typical
flue gas component.

71 mole % of N2,
12 mole % of CO2,
12 mole % of H2O,
5 mole % of O2,
Minor amounts of other impurities, such as SO2, NO2, and
CO.

Flue gas may then be treated to obtain a stream rich in CO2 for
sequestration purposes. According to the International
Environmental Agency (IEA), the total cost of CCS, which ranges
from $50 to $100/tonne of CO2, can be split into three elements,
namely, cost of capture, transportation and storage:
1.
2.
3.

Current cost estimates for large-scale capture systems

(including CO2 pressurization) are $25 to $50/tonne of CO2.
Transportation costs are approximately $1 to $5/tonne of CO2
per 100 km.
Storage costs are $1 to $2/tonne of CO2.

Unquestionably, the cost of separating CO2 out of flue gas is

significantly higher than those for transporting and injecting CO2 into
reservoirs3. Due to the high cost of CO2 capture, it is necessary to
understand and compare the injection and storage potential of impure
2

The simulations have been run on a synthetic 3D heterogeneous

reservoir, closed by four no-flow boundaries, with 23 layers of
different porosity and permeability, but assumed laterally
homogeneous, and a complete 5-spot well pattern covering an area
of 150 acres. The 23 layers of the reservoir model have been
randomly chosen from a uniform distribution of horizontal
permeability, ranging from 0.1 to 100 milliDarcy, so that the
Dykstra-Parson coefficient7 of heterogeneity (VDP) is higher than
0.75. In fact, in our model VDP was equal to 0.79, which is typical
of a heterogeneous reservoir. The discretization along the vertical
axis (Z-direction) is far more detailed in order to permit a finer

visualization of the spread of the CO2 plume. Thus, in the Zdirection, each grid block within the first 21 layers is 10 ft thick,
while the 22nd and 23rd layers are set to 50 ft and 100 ft,
respectively.

after an arbitrary production time. The injection times and volumes

injected are higher than in the base case due to ongoing reservoir
voidage. Continuing production while commencing injection
allows additional condensate recovery. Increased condensate
recovery may be considered attractive, although some of the
injected CO2 is also produced. This ECR scenario has not been
developed further, but it does warrant a detailed economic analysis.
Figure 4 shows the production and injection characteristics for
CO2 storage only and CO2 with 26 years of ECR plus storage cases
as well as the average condensate saturation with time. The initial
increase in condensate saturation is due to CO2 condensation in the
liquid phase, but as pressure increases complete re-vaporization
takes place. This process is delayed in the ECR scenario.

Table 2 provides a detailed description of the reservoir

characteristics. A local grid refinement of 960 by 960 ft2 (3 x 3 x 1
grid blocks) was placed around each well of the 5-spot pattern in
order to better visualize condensate banking during depletion and
re-vaporization during CO2 injection. The simulations have been
conducted with Eclipse300 (Schlumberger) version 2008.1. Figure
1 shows the reservoir model with four corner gas producers that
are perforated over the first 14 layers (140 ft thick), while the
central CO2 injector is perforated over the last 9 layers (220 ft
thick).

Table 3 provides how much CO2 has been stored in the reservoir at
the end of each simulation and gives the amount of condensate still
remaining in the reservoir identified by each pseudo-component.
Stored amounts are based on mass balance. The initial and final
average reservoir pressures with 26 years of ECR plus storage are
essentially the same (5841 and 5847 psia, respectively), and the
initial and final oil saturations are zero. The pressure at the end of
the depletion stage is 1066 psia, with an average oil saturation of
0.19. Table 4 compares the incremental condensate recovery and
CO2 stored for these three cases. The CO2 that is labeled as
vented is part of the produced condensate and gas streams.

The reservoir model is depleted by four wells, each producing at a

rate of 8 Mscf/d, until the flowing bottomhole pressure of the wells
drops to 500 psia, which corresponds to an average reservoir
pressure of 1074 psia. This reservoir condition constitutes the
starting point for CO2 injection for all subsequent cases analyzed.
At the end of this depletion period, the reservoir has a substantial
amount of condensate that has dropped out from the produced gas,
giving an average oil saturation of 0.19 in the model. The dew
point pressure of this fluid is 5330 psia. The base case has injection
of 40 Mscf/d of CO2 into the central well of the 5-spot pattern. As
the producers having been shut-in, the injection pressure is
increased to the initial reservoir pressure 5,868 psi, but no CO2
injection will be done above this pressure to ensure that the fracture
pressure of the rock is not exceed. Table 2 summarizes the
reservoir characteristic properties used in this simulation. The
relative permeability curves for all the simulations used are shown
in Figure 2.

Monitoring the CO2 Plume for 1,000 Years

One of the prime concerns in CO2 sequestration is the fate of the

CO2 plume and so a strict monitoring of the field is required for
this type of project. Even though the condensate phase re-vaporizes
completely, the gas phase shows a significant compositional
gradient with higher CO2 concentrations in the lower portions of
the reservoir. It is uncertain how this will evolve since we do not
have an accurate description of molecular diffusion coefficients,
which are dependent on pressure, temperature and the mixture
composition. Using the basic scenario presented, a simulation has
been run over 1,000 years. Figure 5 illustrates two monitoring
scenarios for the base case run, one which ignores molecular
diffusion and the other which includes diffusion coefficients. The
only difference observed is that CO2 tends to homogenize
throughout the reservoir model when diffusion coefficients are
included. The injection rates and the time scale used had no effect
on the injected quantities.

CO2 Injection for Storage Only Scenario

Initially there is only gas is present in the reservoir and condensate
is produced at the surface at a constant rate of 5,922 STB/d. Once
the reservoir pressure goes below the dew point pressure (5,330
psia) condensate drops out in the reservoir and concentrates around
the wells, and in the layers with lower permeability since the
pressure drops faster in these zones, at the same time since the gas
produced becomes leaner the condensate production rate decreases
drastically. Figure 3 shows the condensate saturation at the end of
the depletion cycle on a cross section passing by two of the
producing wells. Note that the highest condensate buildup occurs in
the layer 20 which has the lowest permeability at 0.21 md.

It can be observed that for these large time scales, molecular

diffusion enhances the homogenization of the CO2. However,
arbitrarily selected diffusion coefficients may be physically
unrealistic and this homogenization may result at the expense of
violating the interplay of gravity and viscous forces, and chemical
potentials. The diffusion coefficients selected were estimated
from9.

In the base case scenario, the four producers are shut-in as soon as
the CO2 injection starts. Thus, the pressure in the reservoir keeps
increasing as the injection is maintained. This reduces the amount
of condensate and subsequently increases the storage capacity of
the reservoir. After this period of natural depletion, the producing
wells are shut-in and the CO2 injection begins at a rate of 40
Mscf/d, decreasing steadily as the limiting bottomhole pressure of
the injector (5,868 psia) is reached. When the injection rate
becomes zero, the CO2 stored in the reservoir model is accounted
for, but the simulation is run for longer times to visualize the
evolution of the CO2 plume.

Effect of Impurities on CO2 Storage

The cost of a CCS projects mainly relies on the cost of separation
of CO2 from flue gas. The level of purity which will fix the cost of
the separation is a key factor of the storage capacity. To quantify
the effect of the impurities contained in the CO2 stream on the
reservoir storage capacity, the base simulation model was rerun
with streams of different compositions considering N2, which is the
most abundant component from flue gas, as the single impurity. It
is interesting to note that at impurity concentrations lower than
10%, methane has an effect similar to that of N2. As expected, the
higher the level of impurity, the lower the storage capacity for CO2,

CO2 Injection for Storage and Enhanced

Condensate Recovery Scenario
Rather than shutting in the producers as soon as the CO2 injection
period begins, two cases were analyzed where the wells are shut in
3

Thus, a compromise has to be found between the need for as brief

as possible injection period and the wish for the most efficient CO2
storage efficiency.

but the total amount of CO2 injected into the formation is also
lower. Therefore, the amount of CO2 injected depends not only on
the concentration of N2 (or any other impurity) in the mixture, but
also on the overall mixture compressibility as indicated in Eq. 1.

SCF(CO2 ) = yCO2

Storage in an equivalent aquifer

p
Tsc
p
(PV)i f c exp(pf pi ) i .. (1)
pscT
zi
zf

Let us now consider the case of storing CO2 in an aquifer, which

has an initial water saturation of 100% and whose salinity is 90,000
ppm (constant over the whole reservoir thickness). The initial
reservoir pressure of the aquifer is taken as the final pressure
resulting from the natural depletion of the gas condensate reservoir
model and the same temperature (285F). This may be unrealistic,
since aquifers are usually at higher pressures, however we wanted
to compare the storage capacity for the same pressure differential
(initial and final pressures) and same reservoir properties used
earlier.

Figure 6 shows the reduction in mass of CO2 stored per unit

volume as well as the reduction in SCF injected when compared to
the base case with 100% CO2 injected. This sensitivity study shows
that it should be possible to determine an economic optimum
between the cost of separation (which increases with the level of
purity of the CO2 stream) and the profit realized by the amount of
CO2 stored (which also increases with the degree of purity of the
CO2 stream as the storage capacity increases).

This model contains a single injector injecting a pure CO2 stream

of 5 MMscf/d until the maximum allowable bottomhole pressure of
5,868 psia is reached. As in the previous simulation, the aquifer
reservoir model is closed by no-flow boundaries, but unlike the
depleted gas condensate model, the mechanisms in this model
account for CO2 dissolution into water and molecular diffusion.

Influence of the injection rate

Several sensitivity runs were carried out to ascertain the influence
of the injection rate on the final amount of CO2 stored in the
reservoir. According to the literature2, large volume and large areal
extent reservoirs tend to decrease the potential for mixing by
dispersion over practical time scales. Thus, a smaller reservoir
should have a superior ratio of mass of CO2 sequestrated per pore
volume. For acceptable pattern dimensions, i.e. for a large enough
system, the injection rate cannot be maintained over the whole
length of injection timeframe without exceeding the maximum
allowed injection pressure (5,868 psia in this case). Figures 7a and
7b present the evolution of the rate and the reservoir pressure for
different CO2 injection rates

This simulation was run for over 1,000 years to monitor the
equilibrium of the CO2 in the aquifer. Indeed, monitoring the CO2
plume is even more important in an aquifer since the injected CO2,
which is lighter than water, will have a strong tendency to move
upward and thus to reach the top of the reservoir. Therefore, the
site selected for CO2 sequestration must have reliable impermeable
cap rocks to avoid CO2 leakage.
The mass of CO2 sequestrated (free gas and dissolved gas) per pore
volume is equal to 1.60 lb/ft3 in this model, compared to 20.59
lb/ft3 in the depleted gas condensate reservoir model. This
confirms that aquifers offer a far lower ratio of CO2 stored per pore
volume than depleted gas condensate reservoirs. However, aquifers
tend to have a far larger extent, which often compensates for this
low ratio and allows storage of significant amounts of CO2. The
results of the first 1000 years of simulation are plotted on Figure 8.

The final amount of CO2 stored remains at 544.4 BSCF, as the final
storage capacity of the reservoir does not change, but the total
length of injection period (steady state injection up to t1 and
declining rate of injection until t2) has a minimum value of about
40 years.
Storage efficiency can be defined as the quantity of CO2 that can be
injected into the reservoir at a maintained rate (CO2 stored at t1 in
Table 5) divided by the storage capacity of the reservoir, which is
the total quantity that can be injected in the reservoir. In the case of
our reservoir model, the total CO2 stored is 544.4 BSCF. Table 5
summarizes the lengths of the injection period (t1) and their
associated CO2 storage efficiencies for different injection rates. It is
readily observed that the storage efficiency decreases rapidly as the
injection rate to be maintained is increased. Table 6 shows that
from after a certain value of injection has been attained (about 100
MMscf/d in this case), it is meaningless to increase the rate to
reduce the length of the injection period as the storage efficiency
will be too low. The dynamics of the reservoir impose a minimum
period of injection (about 40 years in this case) that must be done
in order to benefit from 100% of the reservoir storage capacity.

Figure 8 is particularly interesting since it shows the amount of

CO2 stored in the gas or water phase (denoted by g or w). Since the
CO2 solubility is higher in fresh water, the total amount of CO2
stored in almost fresh aquifers (denoted by F) with a salinity of
9,000 ppm was slightly higher by about 5%. However, as can be
observed in both cases shown in Figure 8, the injected CO2 is
principally stored as a free gas in the aquifer, but the amount of
CO2 stored is relatively low in comparison to the values obtained
from the depleted gas condensate model. Indeed, the average
saturation of the gas phase in the reservoir at the end of the
injection is about 3%, with a maximum of 20% localized in the
CO2 plume (see green area on Figure 9). This is explained by the
fact that water has a very low compressibility, especially when
compared to a gas.

This might be an important concern for practical purposes since the

amount of CO2 that is transported to the injection site usually
comes at a regular rate determined by commercial contract. Thus,
the rate of injection has to be maintained in order to avoid CO2
handling costs, and Table 6 shows how important it is to choose a
rate low enough to benefit from the total reservoir storage capacity
(which is 544.4 BSCF here).

Some of the injected CO2 is stored in the aquifer as dissolved gas in

water. With time, this dissolution phenomenon gains more and
more importance until the water is fully saturated with dissolved
CO2. This can be seen in Figure 8 as a decrease in the amount of
CO2 stored as free gas with an increase in the amount of CO2 stored
in the liquid phase. The variation of average aquifer pressure over
time is shown as more pronounced for the nearly fresh aquifer, but
this decline is actually due to an incorrect description of water
4

density over time. While the mass gained from the CO2 dissolved is
modeled by solubility data, the volumetric changes only account
for a compressibility that is independent of the dissolved CO2.
Nevertheless, because of the limited CO2 concentration in water,
the dissolution of CO2 into water never represents a predominant
storage potential. The snapshots displayed in Figure 9 depict the
dynamic behavior of the CO2 during and after injection into the
saline aquifer model. As expected, the CO2 quickly migrates
upward (as free and dissolved gas) and reaches the top of the
reservoir. The fresh aquifer case exhibited a similar behavior.

For an impure stream the reduction in CO2 stored is not just a

function of the concentration of the impurities but of the overall
compressibility factor of the mixture as indicated in Eq. 1. This
type of quantification will theoretically allow the determination of
an economic optimum between the cost of separation and the profit
realized from the amount of CO2. The mass of CO2 sequestrated
per pore volume in the equivalent aquifer model is equal to 1.60
lb/ft3, compared to 20.59 lb/ft3 in the depleted gas condensate
reservoir model. This confirms that, due to its low overall
compressibility, the aquifer offers a far lower ratio of CO2 stored
per pore volume than that of the depleted gas condensate reservoir.
However, the far larger extent of the aquifer can compensate for
this low ratio and allow a significant amount of CO2 to be stored in
it.

Conclusions and Recommendations

It has been demonstrated that the size of the reservoir is a critical
parameter. If a candidate reservoir for CO2 storage has too small a
reservoir volume, its limited areal extent will prevent the
observation of the effect of injection rate on reservoir storage
efficiency.

As a general conclusion, this study has quantified the storage

capacity of a depleted gas condensate reservoir compared to that of
a saline aquifer with equivalent reservoir properties. It has also
highlighted that the management of CO2 sequestration must be
handled with particular care when choosing the injection rate and
the level of impurities permitted in the CO2 stream in order to
achieve good storage efficiency while dealing with reasonable
period of injection and costs of flue gas separation.

When considering using a depleted gas condensate field for CO2

storage, the later injection of CO2 will completely remove the
remaining in-situ condensate phase by means of reservoir repressurization in addition to re-vaporization of the condensate
components into the vapor phase. The total CO2 storage capacity of
the reservoir model was found to be 544.4 BSCF (i.e. 28.6 MMt) at
a maximum injection pressure of 5,868 psia.

Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Dr. Oladele Bello for proof reading this
article.

The spread of CO2 in the reservoir was significant, benefiting from

a high areal sweep, even in the bottom layers. However, this might
not be the case for reservoirs having a high level of lateral
heterogeneity.

Nomenclature
c = average rock compressibility
yco2 = mole fraction of CO2 in injected stream
(PV)i = initial reservoir pore volume (ft3)
psc = standard pressure
pf = average reservoir final pressure
pi = average initial reservoir pressure
SCF = standard cubic feet
Tsc = standard temperature
zi = compressibility factor reservoir mixture at initial pressure
zf = compressibility factor reservoir mixture at final pressure

Once the injection has stopped and the condensate has been totally
re-vaporized by the CO2, a 1,000 year monitoring simulation of the
CO2 plume shows that its distribution is strongly dependent on
diffusion coefficients, whose dependence with pressure and other
mixture components is still a matter of active research and is
therefore not fully understood.
Several simulations were performed for this gas condensate
reservoir under various CO2 injection scenarios (different rates and
different stream composition), and an equivalent aquifer model has
been built. Analysis of the amount of CO2 stored permitted the
following conclusions to be made:

References

There is an economic upper limit to choice of injection rate (about

100 MMscf/d in this work), after which it is futile to invest in
bigger compressors with which to increase the rate and so reduce
the length of the injection period. This is because the dynamics of
the reservoir impose a minimum period of injection (about 40 years
here) that must be done to approach 100% of the reservoir storage
capacity. Future work may find a generalized dimensionless
correlation that could provide the optimal injection rate per well
and pattern area.
Since the CO2 stream usually arrives at the injection site at a
contractually fixed rate, the injection is carried out at a constant
rate over the whole injection period. Under these contractual
conditions, the chosen injection rate cannot be too high if a
reasonable storage efficiency is required. If the CO2 injection rate
is set above 100 MMscf/d, the models storage efficiency decreases
rapidly to less than 75%. Therefore, a compromise must be found
between the need for as short an injection period as possible and
the desire for the most efficient storage.
5

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special

Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage, Cambridge
University Press, 2005

Shtepani, E. CO2 Sequestration in Depleted Gas/Condensate

Reservoirs, SPE 102284, presented at the SPE Annual
Technical Conference and Exhibition held in San Antonio,
Texas, 24-27 September 2006

Nogueira, M.C., and Mamora D. D.: Effect of Flue Gas

Impurities on the Process of Injection and Storage of CO2 in
Depleted Gas Reservoirs, SPE 94906-STU, presented at the
2005
SPE/EPA/DOE
Exploration
and
Production
Environmental Conference held in Galveston, Texas, 7-9
March 2005.

Reid R. R., Prausnitz J. M, and Sherwood T. K. The

Properties of Gases and Liquids Chapter 11 Diffusion
Coefficients - McGraw-Hill Book Company, Third Edition ,
1977.

Sandoval Rodriguez A.P.: Analysis of Condensate Banking

Dynamics in a Gas Condensate Reservoir Under Different
Injection Schemes, thesis submitted at the Petroleum
Engineering department of Texas A&M University, August
2002

Lohrenz, J. Bray, B. G. And Clark, C. R. Calculating

Viscosity of Reservoir Fluids from their Composition J. Pet.
Tech. Page 1171 Trans., AIME, 231.

7. Dykstra, H., Parsons, R. I. (1950), The Prediction of Oil

Recovery by Water Flood, Secondary Recovery of Oil in the
United States, Second Edition, New York, American
Petroleum Institute, 1950, p.160

8. Whilson, C. H. (1983), Characterizing Hydrocarbon Plus

Fractions, SPEJ (August), 683: Trans. AIME, 275.

9.

Djebbar, T. and Donaldson, E. (2004), Petrophysics-Theory

and Practices of Measuring Reservoir Rock and Fluid
Transport Properties, 2nd Edition, Elsevier.

10. McHaugh, M. A. and Krukonis, V. J. (1994). Supercritical

Fluid Extraction-Principles and Practices, Elsevier

Table 1: Matrix of simulation runs

Simulation
Description of Case

Injection
Gas
Composition mole
% CO2 (remainder
is N2)

Production Time
After Injection
(years)

Injection Rate
MSCF/d

Salinity (TDS)

Diffusion*

Store Only (Depleted

Gas Reservoir)

100, 90, 80, 70, 60,

50

10, 20, 40, 60,

100, 150, 300

90,000

yes, no

90,000
90,000
90,000

no
no
yes

900

yes

ECR 16 + Store
100
16
40
ECR 26 + Store
100
26
40
0
5
Store Saline Aquifer 100
(Sw=1)
0
5
Store Nearly Fresh 100
Aquifer (Sw=1)
* Diffusion Coefficients are rough estimates from Reid, Prausnitz & Sheerwood (4)

Table 2: Summary of the main parameters of the model

Top of the reservoir

Gas-Water Contact

X=8,000, 8,000 360 ft3 (1,469

acres)
12,540 ft
12,900 ft

% (max, mean, min)

18.18, 0.13, 1.54

Kh (max, mean, min) mD

Kv / Kh ratio
Dykstra-Parsons coefficient,
VDP
Temperature

85.4, 28.5, 0.2

0.1
0.79
285F @ 12,800 ft

pinitial

5,868 psi @ 12,800 ft

Swinitial (connate)

0.18

Sginitial

0.82

Reservoir Dimensions

Table 3: Mass of CO2 stored and hydrocarbon

components remaining in the reservoir after each
simulation

Average field pressure (psia)

Store + 26
EOR

5834.8

5846.9

0.19

End of
Depletion

5840.7
0

Average oil saturation

Pseudo
Component
Name

Store + 16
EOR

1066.4

End of CO2
Injection
(NO EOR)
5853.9

Initial Reservoir

Components

Mw

in Group

(lb/lbmol

MMlb of Component (or Pseudo-components) left if Reservoir

Initial

End of

Reservoir

Depletion

End of CO2
Injection
(NO ECR)

Store + 16

Store + 26

ECR

ECR

ZMF1

CO2

44.1

3107.351

739.2434

63842.48

69018.99

75379.54

ZMF3

C1

16.09

15257.53

3212.465

3212.465

2235.87

1192.17

ZMF4

C2-C3

34.94

7738.412

1871.463

1871.463

1339.18

757.50

ZMF5

C4-C6

63.21

4675.886

1377.236

1377.236

1033.85

639.92

ZMF6

C7-C11

105.66

12185.34

5391.576

5391.576

4537.94

3314.76

ZMF7

C11+

254.19

27114.85

21144.06

21144.06

20971.72

19935.85

The amounts in SCF can be obtained from: SCF = 379.5061 M where M is mass and Mw is molecular weight
Mw

Table 4: Incremental CO2 stored and condensate

recovered for three scenarios

Store

26 years ECR + Store

301

16 years ECR +
Store
448

Condensate Production Total (MMSTB)

21.41

23.65

25.44

Incremental Condensate Production %

Gas Production Total (BSCF)

0
410.4

10.5
596.1

17.1
713.0

Gas Injection Total (BSCF)

Added Production Time (years)
CO2 Stored (BSCF)
Storage Density (lbm/ft3)
Incremental CO2 Stored (BSCF)
(% of Base Case, No ECR)
CO2 vented BSCF
(% Total Injection)
Net Gain BSCF

544.3
0
544.3
20.6
0

750.4
15.86
588.8
22.29
4.5
8.2%
161.6
21.5%
-117.0

874.8
25.9
643.6
24.36
99.5
18.3%
231.2
26.4%
-131.7

Final Condensate Production Rate (STB/d)

0
0

534

Table 5: Length of injection period and CO2 storage

efficiency for different injection rates
Rate
(MMscf/d)

Length of steady
injection rate, t1
(Years)

CO2 stored
at t1
(BSCF)

Total length of
injection, t2
(Years)

10
20
40
60
100

145
71
34
21
11

529.7
516.2
487.8
456.8
390.5

> 165
97
62
51
43

150
250

5
0.06

278.7
5.4

40
39

300

0.003

39

Storage Efficiency
CO2(t1)
Storage Capacity
(%)
97.3
94.8
89.6
83.9
71.7
51.2
1.0
0.7

8000 ft

8000 ft

360 ft

Figure 1: Five-spot well pattern and reservoir model

dimensions

Figure 2: Relative permeability functions used for all the

simulations

Figure 3: Condensate saturation at the end of the depletion

cycle on a cross-section passing by two of the producing wells
(maximum value is 0.58)

-20

20

-15

15

-10

10

-5

lbm/ft3

ideal (lbm/ft3)

R e d u c tio n in T o ta l M S C F In je c te d %

C O 2 S to r e d (lb m /ft 3 )

25

Reduction %

5
0

10

20

30

40

50

Injected Stream % N2

Figure 5: Monitoring the CO2 plume without diffusion (left)

and with diffusion (right)
Figure 6: CO2 storage capacity for different compositions of
the injected stream

0.35

160

6000

0.3

140

5000

0.25

4000

0.2

3000

0.15

2000

0.1

7000
Sc(S+ECR)

1000

10MSCF/d

20MSCF/d

40MSCF/d

60MSCF/d

100MSCF/d

150MSCF/d

120

0.05

Incremental Production

G a s I n j e c ti o n R a te (M S C F / d a y )

Sc (S)

S c (A v e r a g e )

Qc (S+ECR)

C o n d e n s a t e P r o d u c t io n R a t e
( S T B /d a y )

Qc(S)

100
80
60

t1
40

t2
20

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

0
0

Time (years)

50

100

150

200

250

Time (years)

Figure 4: Complete re-vaporization of condensate taken place

in storage + ECR scenarios. Also shown are condensate
production rates from the store only and 26 years of ECR
production scenarios

Figure 7a: Rate behavior over time for different starting CO2
injection rates. Length of injection time t1 and total length of
injection t2 are shown for injection rate of 40 MSCF/d

10

2008

7000

2038

A v e ra g e F ie ld P re s s u re ( p s ia )

6000
5000
4000
2058

3000

2108

2000
1000

10MSCF/d

20MSCF/d

40MSCF/d

60MSCF/d

100MSCF/d

150MSCF/d

0
0

50

100

150

200

250
2308

Time (years)

3008

Figure 7b: Average reservoir pressure behavior over time

for different CO2 injection rates

CO2(g) - S
CO2(w) - F

4.0E+07

CO2(w) - S
P (S)

CO2(g) - F
P(F)

6000

3.5E+07
3.0E+07
2.5E+07

M S C F S to r e d

5600

2.0E+07
5400

1.5E+07
1.0E+07

5200

Figure 9: Monitoring Gas Saturation in Aquifer - CO2

concentration in the gas phase

A v e r a g e F ie ld P r e s s u r e ( p s ia )

5800

5.0E+06
0.0E+00

5000
0

200

400

600

800

1000

time (years)

Figure 8: Reservoir pressure and MSCF of CO2 stored as free

gas (g) or dissolvel in the aqueous phase (w) for saline (S) and
fresh (F) aquifers shows increased solubility in fresh aquifers

11