Jean-Charles Manceau

Two‐phase flow properties of a sandstone rock for the CO2/water system: Core‐flooding experiments, and focus on impacts of mineralogical changes

The two-phase flow characterization (CO2/water) of a Triassic sandstone core from the Paris Basin, France, is reported in this paper. Absolute properties (porosity and water permeability), capillary pressure, relative permeability with hysteresis between drainage and imbibition, and residual trapping capacities have been assessed at 9 MPa pore pressure and 28°C (CO2 in liquid state) using a single core-flooding apparatus associated with magnetic resonance imaging. Different methodologies have been followed to obtain a data set of flow properties to be upscaled and used in large-scale CO2 geological storage evolution modeling tools. The measurements are consistent with the properties of well-sorted water-wet porous systems. As the mineralogical investigations showed a nonnegligible proportion of carbonates in the core, the experimental protocol was designed to observe potential impacts on flow properties of mineralogical changes. The magnetic resonance scanning and mineralogical observations indicate mineral dissolution during the experimental campaign, and the core-flooding results show an increase in porosity and water absolute permeability. The changes in two-phase flow properties appear coherent with the pore structure modifications induced by the carbonates dissolution but the changes in relative permeability could also be explained by a potential increase of the water-wet character of the core. Further investigations on the impacts of mineral changes are required with other reactive formation rocks, especially carbonate-rich ones, because the implications can be significant both for the validity of laboratory measurements and for the outcomes of in situ operations modeling.

Well integrity assessment under temperature and pressure stresses by a 1:1 scale wellbore experiment

A new in situ experiment is proposed for observing and understanding well integrity evolution, potentially due to changes that could occur during a well lifetime. The focus is put on temperature and pressure stresses. A small section of a well is reproduced at scale 1:1 in the Opalinus Clay formation, representative of a low permeable caprock formation (in Mont Terri Underground Rock Laboratory, Switzerland). The well-system behavior is characterized over time both by performing hydro-tests to quantify the hydraulic properties of the well and their evolution, and sampling the fluids to monitor the chemical composition and its changes. This paper presents the well integrity assessment under different imposed temperature (17–52°C) and pressure (10–28 bar) conditions. The results obtained in this study confirm the ability of the chosen design and observation scale to estimate the evolution of the well integrity over time, the characteristics of the flow along the well-system and the reasons of the observed evolution. In particular, the estimated effective well permeability is higher than cement or caprock intrinsic permeability, which suggest preferential flow pathways at interfaces especially at the very beginning of the experiment; the significant variations of the effective well permeability observed after setting pressure and temperature stresses indicate that operations could influence well integrity in similar proportions than the cementing process.

Dealing with uncertainty in risk assessments in early stages of a CO2 geological storage project: comparison of pure-probabilistic and fuzzy-probabilistic frameworks

CO2 capture and storage is recognized as a promising solution among others to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. This technology requires robust risk assessment and management from the early stages of the project (i.e. during the site selection phase, prior to injection), which is a challenging task due to the high level of aleatory and epistemic uncertainties. This paper aims at implementing and comparing two frameworks for dealing with uncertainties: a classical probabilistic framework and a probabilistic-fuzzy-based (i.e. jointly combining fuzzy sets and probabilities) one. The comparison of both frameworks is illustrated for assessing the risk related to leakage of brine through an abandoned well on a realistic site in the Paris basin (France). For brine leakage flow computation, a semi-analytical model, requiring 25 input parameters, is used. Depending on the framework, available data is represented in a different manner (either using classical probability laws or interval-valued tools). Though the fuzzy-probabilistic framework for uncertainty propagation is computationally more expensive, it presents the major advantage to highlight situations of high degree of epistemic uncertainty: this enables nuancing a too-optimistic decision-making only supported by a single probabilistic curve (i.e. using the Monte-Carlo results). On this basis, we demonstrate how fuzzy-based sensitivity analysis can help identifying how to reduce the imprecision in an effective way, which has useful applications for additional studies. This study highlights the importance of choices in the mathematical tools for representing the lack of knowledge especially in the early phases of the project, where data is scarce, incomplete and imprecise.