An Integrated Approach to Predicting Carbon Dioxide Storage Capacity in Carbonate Reservoirs

Abstract:

Carbonate reservoirs are widespread globally but pose unique challenges for geologic carbon dioxide (CO2) storage due to the reactive nature of carbonate minerals and the inherently heterogeneous pore structures of these rock types. Carbonate mineral dissolution resulting from CO2-acidified fluids may actually create new storage capacity, but predicting the extent and location of enhanced storage is complicated by the presence of pore size distributions spanning orders of magnitude as well as common microfractures. To address this issue, core samples spanning a wide range of depths and predicted permeabilities were procured from wells drilled into the Weyburn-Midale reservoir from the IEA GHG's CO2 Monitoring and Storage Project, Saskatchewan, Canada; and from the Arbuckle dolomite at the Kansas Geological Survey's South-central Kansas CO2 Project. Our approach integrated non-invasive characterization, complex core-flooding experiments, and 3-D reactive transport simulations to calibrate relevant CO2 storage relationships among fluid flow, porosity, permeability, and chemical reactivity. The resulting observations from this work permit us to constrain (and place uncertainty limits on) some of the model parameters needed for estimating evolving reservoir CO2 storage capacity. The challenge remains, however, as to how to best interpret and implement these observations at the actual reservoir scale. We present our key findings from these projects and recommendations for storage capacity predictions. This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.