Time Lapse Gravity and Seismic Monitoring of CO2 Injection at the West Hastings Field, Texas

Abstract:

Time lapse or 4D gravity and seismic reflection surveys are being conducted at the West Hastings Field near Houston, Texas to monitor the progress of CO2 injection. This Department of Energy supported CO2 sequestration experiment is conducted in conjunction with a Denbury Onshore, LLC tertiary recovery project. The reservoir is at a depth of 1.8 km in the Oligocene Frio sands and has been produced since the 1930s. Goals are an accounting and mapping of the injected CO2 and to determine if migration occurs along intra-reservoir faults. An integrated interpretation of the geophysical surveys will be made together with well logs and engineering data. Gravity monitoring of water versus gas replacement has been very successful, but liquid phase CO2 monitoring is problematic due to the smaller density contrast with respect to oil and water. This reservoir has a small volume to depth ratio and hence only a small gravity difference signal is expected on the surface. New borehole gravity technology introduced by Micro-g-Lacoste can make gravity measurements at near reservoir depths with a much higher signal to noise ratio. This method has been successfully evaluated on a simulation of the Hastings project. Field operations have been conducted for repeated surface and borehole gravity surveys beginning in 2013. The surface survey of 95 stations covers an area of 3 by 5 km and 22 borehole gravity logs are run in the interval above the Frio formation. 4D seismic reflection surveys are being made at 6 month intervals on the surface and in 3 VSP wells. CO2 injection into the targeted portion of the reservoir only began in early 2015 and monitoring will continue into 2017. To date only the baseline reservoir conditions have been assessed. The overall success of the gravity monitoring will not be determined until 2017.