Investigating the Impact of Reservoir Properties and Injection Parameters on Carbon Dioxide Dissolution in Saline Aquifers

Abstract

CO2 injection into geological formations is considered one way of mitigating the increasing levels of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and its effect on and global warming. In regard to sequestering carbon underground, different countries have conducted projects at commercial scale or pilot scale and some have plans to develop potential storage geological formations for carbon dioxide storage. In this study, pure CO2 injection is examined on a model with the properties of bunter sandstone and then sensitivity analyses were conducted for some of the fluid, rock and injection parameters. The results of this study show that the extent to which CO2 has been convected in the porous media in the reservoir plays a vital role in improving the CO2 dissolution in brine and safety of its long term storage. We conclude that heterogeneous permeability plays a crucial role on the saturation distribution and can increase or decrease the amount of dissolved CO2 in water around ± 7% after the injection stops and up to 13% after 120 years. Furthermore, the value of absolute permeability controls the effect of the Kv/Kh ratio on the CO2 dissolution in brine. In other words, as the value of vertical and horizontal permeability decreases (i.e., tight reservoirs) the impact of Kv/Kh ratio on the dissolved CO2 in brine becomes more prominent. Additionally, reservoir engineering parameters, such as well location, injection rate and scenarios, also have a high impact on the amount of dissolved CO2 and can change the dissolution up to 26%, 100% and 5.5%, respectively.