On baseline determination and gas saturation derivation from downhole electrical monitoring of shallow biogenic gas production

Abstract:

Adequate hydrogeophysical monitoring of CO₂ geological storage remains a challenge as different parameters might be modified during storage. That implies to compare real-time measurements to an adequate baseline. At the Maguelone shallow experimental site a representative baseline for electrical resistivity was built from a large number of downhole geophysical measurements recorded over time. At this coastal site this issue is particularly important due to the production of biogenic gas at shallow depth (< 200 m) from the subsurface sediments.

For this, a modified petrophysical model based on the Waxman-Smits model is proposed to estimate gas saturation found to vary up to 7% within shallow sand layers, indicating that natural gas production within the sedimentary pile from biological activity cannot be neglected during gas injection experiments. In the two main reservoirs located at shallow depth (R1 and R2), a variable gas content of 7% and 4% was obtained over short periods of time in the TLL6 and DSO1 boreholes, respectively. The difference might be due to the gentle stratigraphic slope identified from cross hole log and core analyses, TLL6 being located upslope from DSO1. This study also revealed a rapid dynamic mechanism resulting in transfer of biogenic gas from the bottom reservoir (R1) to the top one (R2), possibly due to gas leaking along some of the monitoring boreholes. These sand-rich layers constitute buffer reservoirs for biogenic gases before being released to the atmosphere. Future studies at Maguelone will first focus on biogenic gas sampling from a downhole multi-packer completion in order to identify and quantify the different gas phases produced over time by the sedimentary pile.