Development and implementation of a seismic characterization and CO₂ monitoring program for the Illinois Basin – Decatur Project

Abstract

The Illinois Basin -Decatur Project (IBDP) is a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project that is located at the Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) Company's corn processing plant in Decatur, Illinois. The IBDP has an extensive seismic program that was designed to meet site characterization and monitoring objectives that includes two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) surface seismic data, time-lapse 3D vertical seismic profi les (VSPs), and microseismic monitoring. As little deep subsurface data was available within a 20-mile (32-km) radius of site, the surface seismic surveys have been important to the site characterization objectives for the project. Through seismic inversion analysis, rock properties such as density, porosity, and rock lithology were derived from the surface seismic data and incorporated into the geologic and geomechanical models for the project. Time-lapse 3D VSPs are acquired with a permanent geophone array in Geophysical Monitoring Well #1 (GM1). Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) injection commenced in November 2012, and the fi rst monitor survey was acquired in February 2012 after approximately 70 000 tonnes of CO 2 had been injected. While this is a small volume of CO 2 to detect seismically, anomalies were identifi ed that may be suggestive of CO 2 movement in the Mt Simon Sandstone at the depth of injection. Microseismic activity has been monitored using the geophone array in GM1 and two deep geophones installed in the Injection well (CCS1). A comparison of the different operation parameters with microseismic activity shows a correlation between microseismicity and pressure changes in the formation.

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

“…The underground CO 2 plume movement and distribution, extension, and magnitude of the induced injection pressure, and possible and potential risks and hazards associated with this phenomenon both during and after injection have been analyzed by many research and study groups. [12][13][14][15][16][17][18] Nevertheless, one major concern is that the effective amount of CO 2 that needs to be injected and stored in the saline formations to have a known effect on climate change is far beyond the amounts that have been injected so far. 19 Consequently, one of the most important tasks in CCS research is to estimate the most feasible capacity of these formations to hold and store CO 2 for many years.…”

Spatially Varying Stress State in the Central U.S. From Bayesian Inversion of Focal Mechanism and In Situ Maximum Horizontal Stress Orientation Data

“…Seismicity with the subsurface storage of fluids has been of concern recently (e.g., Chang & Segall, ; Keranen et al, ; Kim, ; Yeck et al, ; van der Baan & Calixto, ). Induced microseismic events caused by CO 2 sequestration have been documented in this region by Kaven et al () and Couëslan et al () in Illinois and from wastewater injection by Kim () in Ohio. Understanding the stress regime in this region is important in order to mitigate the risk of fault reactivation.…”

Interpretation of above‐zone pressure influence time to characterize CO2 leakage

“…Also, M and C are the mobility ratio and storativity ratio respectively defined by (10) are in Laplace-Fourier domain and should be converted into time and space domain. We use numerical algorithms of Fast Fourier Transform 34 and Stehfest 35 for Fourier and Laplace inversion, respectively.…”

“…We use numerical algorithms of Fast Fourier Transform 34 and Stehfest 35 for Fourier and Laplace inversion, respectively. From the analytical solution given by Eqns (8) to (10), the dimensionless pressure is a function of 4 dimensionless groups: mobility ratio (M), storativity ratio (C), dimensionless plume size (b D ), and dimensionless plume distance from the active well (a D ). For a given observation location, (a D -x D ) is fixed and independent of relative location of the plume with respect to the observation well.…”

“…Subsurface monitoring of CO 2 is required to ensure detecting any leakage before reaching shallow subsurface. Various monitoring approaches have been used for tracking the CO 2 within the injection zone using pressure, 3,4 temperature, [5][6][7] geophysical, [8][9][10] geochemical, 11 and electromagnetic tomography 12,13 data. In addition, monitoring is performed in a permeable zone above the injection zone to determine whether CO 2 migrated from the target injection zone to the above-zone.…”