Numerical Investigations of CO2 Sequestration in Geological Formations: Problem-Oriented Benchmarks

Problem 2: Enhanced CH4 Recovery in Combination with CO2 Storage in Depleted Gas Reservoirs

November 2, 2007

Authors: Contact:

A. Ebigbo, H. Class ano@iws.uni-stuttgart.de

Dept. of Hydromechanics and Modelling of Hydrosystems, Universitt Stuttgart a

This project is part of the R&D-Programme GEOTECHNOLOGIEN.

1 INTRODUCTION

Introduction

Depleted gas reservoirs are potential target formations for carbon dioxide (CO2 ) sequestration purposes (Oldenburg and Benson, 2002; van der Meer, 2005). Such reservoirs have stored gases for very long periods of time and are therefore well suited for CO2 storage. Injected CO2 could displace the native gas (in this case methane, CH4 ) increasing its production from the reservoir. Infrastructure such as well and pipelines often already exist in gas elds and reduces the cost of CO2 storage. However, during gas production the reservoir experiences large changes in pressure which may compromise the sealing capability of the cap-rock. The problem described here deals with storage of CO2 in such a depleted reservoir. Interesting processes include the mixing of the gases, the changes in physical properties of the gas mixture with composition and the amount of CH4 which can be recovered before CO2 breakthrough.

Problem Description

Numerical modelling of CO2 injection into a gas reservoir in a ve-spot pattern has been done by Oldenburg et al. (2004) and Seo and Mamora (2005). This is a good representation of a generic enhanced gas scenario and will be the basis of this benchmark problem. Figure 2 shows a schematic of the ve-spot problem with an injection well at the centre and production wells at the corners. Due to symmetry, only a quarter of the domain is modelled. Table 1: Reservoir properties (from Seo and Mamora (2005)) and simulation parameters. Property Value 2 Quarter ve-spot area 40477 m (201.19 m 201.19 m) Reservoir thickness 45.72 m 0.23 Porosity Brine saturation 0 Reservoir temperature (isothermal) 66.7 C 35.5 bar Depleted reservoir (initial) pressure Coecient of molecular diusion 6107 m2 /s Problem 2.1 Horizontal permeability 50 1015 m2 5 1015 m2 Vertical permeability

2 PROBLEM DESCRIPTION

production well

modelled area

injection well

Figure 1: Five-spot pattern depicting the CO2 injection well and the CH4 production wells. Table 2: Problem 2.2: Permeabilities. Layer Horizontal permeability [1015 m2 ] Vertical permeability [1015 m2 ] 1 2 60 60 6 6 3 4 5 6 7 8 100 5 20 90 40 5 10 0.5 2 9 4 0.5 9 10 20 100 2 10

The properties of the reservoir are identical to those suggested in Seo and Mamora (2005) and are given in Table 1. Since numerical diusion has a strong inuence on the mixing of the gases, a discretisation length of 4.572 m is given. Injection of CO2 takes place in the lower part of the injection well (over 4.572 m) whereas the CH4 is produced in the upper part of the aquifer (over 4.572 m). Production is stopped when the produced gas from the extraction well contains up to 20 % by mass CO2 . This benchmark problem is subdivided into two cases which dier by the permeability distribution. In Problem 2.1, the reservoir is homogeneous with a permeability as given in Table 1. The reservoir in Problem 2.2 is divided into ten layers of varying permeability. All ten layers are 4.572 m thick. Their horizontal permeabilities are given in Table 2. Note that Layer 1 is the bottommost layer and Layer 10 the topmost. The mean value of these horizontal permeabilities is 50 1015 m2 . In each layer, the vertical permeability is ten times lower than the horizontal permeability.

3 OUTPUT

Initial and Boundary Conditions

The gas in the reservoir is assumed to initially contain only CH4 . Other initial conditions are included in Table 1. All boundaries except the wells are no-ow boundaries. At the injection well, CO2 is injected at a constant rate of 0.4 kg/s (0.1 kg/s per quarter). There is no CH4 ow over the injection well boundary. CH4 is produced by keeping the conditions on the extraction well boundary constant and equal to the initial conditions (pressure, p = 35.5 bar; CO2 CO2 mass fraction, Xg = 0).

Output

For both problems (2.1 and 2.2), the resulting CO2 and CH4 mass ux over time at the extraction well for the quarter ve-spot pattern are to be given. The mass of produced CH4 compared to the mass of CH4 in the domain before injection (recovery factor) and the point in time at which the extraction well is shut down are of interest. As mentioned above, the extraction well is shut down when the produced gas contains up to 20 % by mass CO2 .

References
Oldenburg, C., Benson, S., 2002. CO2 Injection for Enhanced Gas Production and Carbon Sequestration. Society of Petroleum Engineers SPE 74367. Oldenburg, C., Stevens, S., Benson, S., 2004. Economic feasibility of carbon sequestration with enhanced gas recovery (CSEGR). Energy 29, 14131422. Seo, J., Mamora, D., 2005. Experimental and Simulation Studies of Sequestration of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide in Depleted Gas Reservoirs. Energy and Resources Technology 127. van der Meer, B., 2005. Carbon Dioxide Storage in Natural Gas Reservoirs. Oil & Gas Science and Technology 60 (3), 527536.