Integrated reservoir modeling at the Illinois Basin – Decatur Project

Abstract

Injecting carbon dioxide (CO2) into the subsurface comes with the added responsibility of understanding the movement of the CO2 once injected, and ensuring that it remains contained in the target reservoir. Consequently, a significant part of the sequestration process is to build and maintain models of the subsurface that will predict the flow of the injected CO2. These models need to integrate all data available so that the subsurface movement of the CO2 can be predicted should changes to the injection parameters be made. As the CO2 plume is monitored by various measurements, the model needs to be flexible enough to be updated to account for any difference between predicted and known behavior. An integrated predictive reservoir model was created for the Illinois Basin – Decatur Project utilizing a variety of data collected from 2007 until January 2013. The evolution of this model will be discussed. Prior to the beginning of injection, in November 2011, reservoir models and numerical simulations were used extensively to design the wellbore, completions, and well tests; optimize predicted injectivity; simulate the CO2 subsurface migration development and pressure perturbation; analyze and understand well test results; and quantify uncertainties in predictions. Now, with the help of dynamic injection data collected, the calibration of the model has been accomplished by honoring the observations and this facilitates making more informed forecasts. Our analysis indicates a laterally developing CO2 subsurface migration, thus reducing the near to mid‐term expectation of CO2 reaching the seal and upper sections of target reservoir. Further planned modeling efforts include additional model refinements required for anticipated future applications including regulatory compliance and multi‐physics data integration.

Influence of small‐scale fluvial architecture on CO2 trapping processes in deep brine reservoirs

“…[] showed that hysteresis in relative permeability curves was, in fact, important to creating capillary trapping in a reservoir with heterogeneity at the scale of 10 2 −10 3 m. Their simulations were insensitive to hysteresis in capillary pressure curves. A number of other studies have also considered CO 2 sequestration in fluvial reservoirs without representing sedimentary architecture at the scale of our study [e.g., Zhou et al ., ; Delshad et al ., ; Senel et al ., ]. The results of our study indicate that the amount of trapping of CO 2 and the geometry of the CO 2 plume observed may be very different in such simulations if sedimentary architecture is represented at smaller scales and with hysteretic characteristic relationships defined differently for different textural facies.…”

Overview of microseismic response to CO2 injection into the Mt. Simon saline reservoir at the Illinois Basin-Decatur Project

“…All of the seismic lines and surveys, along with the multiple downhole geophysical investigations for formation properties, were incorporated to produce a series of static and dynamic models including, geologic, velocity and reservoir models (Senel et al, 2014;Will et al, 2016a). Also, inversion of the 3D seismic data along with reservoir properties acquired from well data were used to produce a reservoir flow simulation based on the integrated earth model.…”

“…(For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.) FromSenel et al (2014).…”

On the use of Darcy's law and invasion‐percolation approaches for modeling large‐scale geologic carbon sequestration

“…Upon re-dimensionalization, the equations for wetting and non-wetting fl uid phases become, respectively (19) Subtracting the non-wetting phase fl ow equation from the wetting one, we obtain…”

“…who provided a review of the ten years between 2005 and 2015. A recent benchmark of the state‐of‐the‐art is the work by Senel et al . who modeled the Midwest Geologic Sequestration Consortium (MGSC) injection in Illinois .…”