CO2 Injection in a Saline Formation: Pre-Injection Reservoir Modeling and Uncertainty Analysis for Illinois Basin – Decatur Project

3D Pressure‐limited approach to model and estimate CO2 injection and storage capacity: saline Mount Simon Formation

“…As the largest CCS project in the United States, 1 million tonnes of captured industrial CO 2 was injected into the Mount Simon Formation over 3 years, from late 2011 to late 2014 . Senel and Chugunov developed a 3D dynamic simulation model for simulating the CO 2 injection and storage phenomenon in the Decatur project using commercial 3D numerical reservoir simulation software. After constructing and running their model with an associated 200 reservoir simulation realizations to address geologic uncertainties, they found that a dynamic model covering an area of 10 kilometers (km) by 10 km and a formation thickness of around 300 meters (m) surrounding the CO 2 injector well could successfully model and history match results of the Decatur CO 2 injection project.…”

“…The resultant final model with the highest possible calculation speed and lowest grid convergence issues was composed of 32*32*15 (15,360) cells. The dynamic model was built by allowing a constant CO 2 injection rate of 2.64 kg/s (kilograms per second) (83,600 tonnes/year) for 3 years (1,000,000 tonnes for the entire model in 3 years similar to the Decatur project) by employing the perforation intervals of the Senel and Chugunov model for the Decatur project. Based on Figs and , a comparison of (i) the simulated well bottomhole pressure (BHP, which varied from 240 to 250 bars) and (ii) the generated CO 2 plume sizes of the current model (which were approximately 450 m long for quarter of the model and 900 m long for the entire model) with those of the Senel and Chugunov model indicated a very good agreement between both models.…”

“…The dynamic model was built by allowing a constant CO 2 injection rate of 2.64 kg/s (kilograms per second) (83,600 tonnes/year) for 3 years (1,000,000 tonnes for the entire model in 3 years similar to the Decatur project) by employing the perforation intervals of the Senel and Chugunov model for the Decatur project. Based on Figs and , a comparison of (i) the simulated well bottomhole pressure (BHP, which varied from 240 to 250 bars) and (ii) the generated CO 2 plume sizes of the current model (which were approximately 450 m long for quarter of the model and 900 m long for the entire model) with those of the Senel and Chugunov model indicated a very good agreement between both models. This agreement indicated that the approximation of A eff with uniform geologic and engineering properties corresponding to the most likely property values (which are based on the US Geological Survey's (USGS) national assessment of geologic carbon dioxide storage resources) could produce results with similar accuracy to most refined models for a limited reservoir area.…”

“…We applied the developed model to (i) estimate the dynamic CO 2 injection and storage capacity, (ii) estimate the number of required injection wells, and (iii) prepare the CO 2 injection distribution maps of the Mount Simon Formation. We used both scenarios (described ealier) mainly because there was data available on CO 2 injection and storage history from the Decatur project and some of the required modeling properties (such as the reservoir's areal thickness and depth) were already available from previous studies . However, of importance were the map cells that corresponded to the boundary of the Mount Simon Formation.…”

“…U nderground storage of captured anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) is one of the most important methods available to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the Original Research Article: 3D Pressure-limited approach to model and estimate CO 2 injection and storage capacity H Jahediesfanjani et al of CO 2 storage in underground saline formations gained greater attention during the last few decades, mainly because of their technical feasibility and availability. [2][3][4] To demonstrate the practicality of this process, the Decatur injection project into the Mount Simon Formation in the Illinois Basin 5 and some other older and current carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects [6][7][8] were considered and studied as the most important examples. The study and analysis of these projects revealed that the concept of CO 2 storage in such reservoirs may be practically accomplished at a large industrial scale without major technical problems or consequences.…”