Development of a predictive model for carbon dioxide sequestration in deep saline carbonate aquifers


Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mühendislik Fakültesi, Petrol ve Doğal Gaz Mühendisliği Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2009

Öğrenci: SULTAN ANBAR

Danışman: SERHAT AKIN

Özet:

Although deep saline aquifers are found in all sedimentary basins and provide very large storage capacities, a little is known about them because they are rarely a target for the exploration. Furthermore, nearly all the experiments and simulations made for CO2 sequestration in deep saline aquifers are related to the sandstone formations. The aim of this study is to create a predictive model to estimate the CO2 storage capacity of the deep saline carbonate aquifers since a little is known about them. To create a predictive model, the variables which affect the CO2 storage capacity and their ranges are determined from published literature data. They are rock properties (porosity, permeability, vertical to horizontal permeability ratio), fluid properties (irreducible water saturation, gas permeability end point, Corey water and gas coefficients), reaction properties (forward and backward reaction rates) and reservoir properties (depth, pressure gradient, temperature gradient, formation dip angle, salinity), diffusion coefficient and Kozeny-Carman Coefficient. Other parameters such as pore volume compressibility and density of brine are calculated from correlations found in literature. To cover all possibilities, Latin Hypercube Space Filling Design is used to construct 100 simulation cases and CMG STARS is used for simulation runs. By using least squares method, a linear correlation is found to calculate CO2 storage capacity of the deep saline carbonate aquifers with a correlation coefficient 0.81 by using variables found from literature and simulation results. Numerical dispersion effects have been considered by increasing the grid dimensions. It has been found that correlation coefficient decreased to 0.77 when the grid size was increased from 250 ft to 750 ft. The sensitivity analysis shows that the most important parameter that affects CO2 storage capacity is depth since the pressure difference between formation pressure and fracture pressure increases with depth. Also, CO2 storage mechanisms are investigated at the end of 300 years of simulation. Most of the gas (up to 90%) injected into formation dissolves into the formation water and negligible amount of CO2 reacts with carbonate. This result is consistent with sensitivity analysis results since the variables affecting the solubility of CO2 in brine have greater affect on storage capacity of aquifers. Dimensionless linear and nonlinear predictive models are constructed to estimate the CO2 storage capacity of all deep saline carbonate aquifers and it is found that the best dimensionless predictive model is linear one independent of bulk volume of the aquifer.