CO2 Monitoring: Taking the Pulse of CO2 Storage Reservoirs

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the current legislation regulating the deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the European Union, and examines how this regulation dictates the selection, implementation and long term use of monitoring technologies at CO2 storage sites onshore and offshore. We consider the wide range of purposes and objective that a CCS Monitoring Plan has to meet, and the resulting wide range of parameters that it is necessary to monitor. We also assess some of the practical considerations that may render a particular technology viable in one reservoir, and completely inappropriate in another reservoir. The authors conclude that the monitoring plan will be highly site dependent. We also note that there exist a wide range of cost-effective and readily deployable wellbore logging and monitoring tools developed for the oil and gas industry, which have direct applicability to the monitoring of a CCS storage site and complex. However, the unique attributes of CO2, and the significant difference in the monitoring objectives when compared with oil and gas activity means that there is significant potential for new technologies to improve CO2detection in the subsurface and to reduce costs.