Geomechanical Integrity and Non-Isothermal Effects in CO2 Storage

11 Pages Posted: 2 Apr 2021 Last revised: 7 Apr 2021

See all articles by Tore Ingvald Bjørnarå

Tore Ingvald Bjørnarå

Norwegian Geotechnical Institute

Joonsang Park

Norwegian Geotechnical Institute

Hector Marin-Moreno

University of Southampton - National Oceanography Centre Southampton

Date Written: March 24, 2021

Abstract

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an important component among several initiatives to reduce greenhouse gases emitted to the atmosphere. In Norway, a joint venture is underway between Equinor, Shell and Total to implement the world's first complete value chain (capture, shipping, transport and storage) offshore CCS demonstration project, in which the CO2 can come from many different sources. Here we investigate the thermal effect on a future candidate site for CO2 storage, Smeaheia, using numerical modelling. To do this, we compare results from hydro-mechanical (HM-model) and thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM model) CO2 injection simulations, including the equation of state for the fluids. The injected CO2 is colder than the storage reservoir, and as the CO2 migrates, it cools down the surrounding formations, mainly the reservoir and the overlying caprock. Increased pore pressure due to injection dissipates fast in the high-permeable reservoir in Smeaheia. However, in the caprock, the cooling causes the fluid to contract and the low-permeable caprock creates undrained conditions for the formation water which results in significant reduction in pore pressure. We observe that the thermal effect contributes to destabilizing the reservoir and stabilizing the caprock, which is seemingly fortuitous, but also potentially an unpredictable situation because of the large stress transients and gradients in a small area where the stability can be sensitive to small weaknesses and heterogeneities.

Keywords: CO2 storage, two-phase flow, hydro-mechanical (HM) coupling, thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) coupling, non-isothermal effect

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Suggested Citation

Bjørnarå, Tore Ingvald and Park, Joonsang and Marin-Moreno, Hector, Geomechanical Integrity and Non-Isothermal Effects in CO2 Storage (March 24, 2021). Proceedings of the 15th Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies Conference 15-18 March 2021, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3811357 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3811357

Tore Ingvald Bjørnarå (Contact Author)

Norwegian Geotechnical Institute ( email )

PO Box 3930 Ullevaal Stadion
Oslo, N-0855
Norway

Joonsang Park

Norwegian Geotechnical Institute ( email )

PO Box 3930 Ullevaal Stadion
Oslo, N-0855
Norway

Hector Marin-Moreno

University of Southampton - National Oceanography Centre Southampton

Southampton, SO14 3ZH
United Kingdom

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