Seismic monitoring of a CO2 flood in a carbonate reservoir: A rock physics study

Abstract

A carbon dioxide (CO2) injection pilot project is underway in Section 205 of the McElroy field, West Texas. High‐resolution crosswell seismic imaging surveys were conducted before and after CO2 flooding to monitor the CO2 flood process and map the flooded zones. The velocity changes observed by these time‐lapse surveys are typically on the order of −6%, with maximum values on the order of −10% in the vicinity of the injection well. These values generally agree with laboratory measurements if the effects of changing pore pressure are included. The observed dramatic compressional ([Formula: see text]) and shear ([Formula: see text]) velocity changes are considerably greater than we had initially predicted using the Gassmann (1951) fluid substitution analysis (Nolen‐Hoeksema et al., 1995) because we had assumed reservoir pressure would not change from survey to survey. However, the post‐CO2 reservoir pore fluid pressure was substantially higher than the original pore pressure. In addition, our original petrophysical data for dry and brine‐saturated reservoir rocks did not cover the range of pressures actually seen in the field. Therefore, we undertook a rock physics study of CO2 flooding in the laboratory, under the simulated McElroy pressures and temperature. Our results show that the combined effects of pore pressure buildup and fluid substitution caused by CO2 flooding make it petrophysically feasible to monitor the CO2 flood process and to map the flooded zones seismically. The measured data show that [Formula: see text] decreases from a minimum 3.0% to as high as 10.9%, while [Formula: see text] decreases from 3.3% to 9.5% as the reservoir rocks are flooded with CO2 under in‐situ conditions. Such [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] decreases, even if averaged over all the samples measured, are probably detectable by either crosswell or high‐resolution surface seismic imaging technologies. Our results show [Formula: see text] is sensitive to both the CO2 saturation and the pore pressure increase, but [Formula: see text] is particularly sensitive to the pore pressure increase. As a result, the combined [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] changes caused by the CO2 injection may be used, at least semiquantitatively, to separate CO2‐flooded zones with pore pressure buildup from those regions without pore pressure buildup or to separate CO2 zones from pressured‐up, non‐CO2 zones. Our laboratory results show that the largest [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] changes caused by CO2 injection are associated with high‐porosity, high‐permeability rocks. In other words, CO2 flooding and pore pressure buildup decrease [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] more in high‐porosity, high‐permeability samples. Therefore, it may be possible to delineate such high‐porosity, high‐permeability streaks seismically in situ. If the streaks are thick enough compared to seismic resolution, they can be identified by the larger [Formula: see text] or [Formula: see text] changes.