Pressure Buildup During CO2 Injection into a Closed Brine Aquifer

CO 2 injected into porous formations is accommodated by reduction in the volume of the formation fluid and enlargement of the pore space, through compression of the formation fluids and rock material, respectively. A critical issue is how the resulting pressure buildup will affect the mechanical int...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Transport in porous media 2011-09, Vol.89 (3), p.383-397
Main Authors: Mathias, Simon A., González Martínez de Miguel, Gerardo J., Thatcher, Kate E., Zimmerman, Robert W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Approximation
Aquifers
Carbon dioxide
Civil Engineering
Classical and Continuum Physics
Construction
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Engineering and environment geology. Geothermics
Enlargement
Estimating
Estimation
Exact sciences and technology
Fluid flow
Formations
Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences
Hydrocarbons
Hydrogeology
Hydrology. Hydrogeology
Hydrology/Water Resources
Industrial Chemistry/Chemical Engineering
Mathematical analysis
Pollution, environment geology
Pressure distribution
Saline water
Sedimentary rocks
Spreadsheets
Stress concentration
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Summary:CO 2 injected into porous formations is accommodated by reduction in the volume of the formation fluid and enlargement of the pore space, through compression of the formation fluids and rock material, respectively. A critical issue is how the resulting pressure buildup will affect the mechanical integrity of the host formation and caprock. Building on an existing approximate solution for formations of infinite radial extent, this article presents an explicit approximate solution for estimating pressure buildup due to injection of CO 2 into closed brine aquifers of finite radial extent. The analysis is also applicable for injection into a formation containing multiple wells, in which each well acts as if it were in a quasi-circular closed region. The approximate solution is validated by comparison with vertically averaged results obtained using TOUGH2 with ECO2N (where many of the simplifying assumptions are relaxed), and is shown to be very accurate over wide ranges of the relevant parameter space. The resulting equations for the pressure distribution are explicit, and can be easily implemented within spreadsheet software for estimating CO 2 injection capacity.
ISSN:0169-3913
1573-1634
DOI:10.1007/s11242-011-9776-z