Junho Oh

Characteristics of Salt-Precipitation and the Associated Pressure Build-Up during CO2 Storage in Saline Aquifers

Mitigation and control of borehole pressure at the bottom of an injection well is directly related to the effective management of well injectivity during geologic carbon sequestration activity. Researchers have generally accepted the idea that high rates of CO2 injection into low permeability strata results in increased bottom-hole pressure in a well. However, the results of this study suggested that this is not always the case, due to the occurrence of localized salt precipitation adjacent to the injection well. A series of numerical simulations indicated that in some cases, a low rate of CO2 injection into high permeability formation induced greater pressure build-up. This occurred because of the different types of salt precipitation pattern controlled by buoyancy-driven CO2 plume migration. The first type is non-localized salt precipitation, which is characterized by uniform salt precipitation within the dry-out zone. The second type, localized salt precipitation, is characterized by an abnormally high level of salt precipitation at the dry-out front. This localized salt precipitation acts as a barrier that hampers the propagation of both CO2 and pressure to the far field as well as counter-flowing brine migration toward the injection well. These dynamic processes caused a drastic pressure build-up in the well, which decreased injectivity. By modeling a series of test cases, it was found that low-rate CO2 injection into high permeability formation was likely to cause localized salt precipitation. Sensitivity studies revealed that brine salinity linearly affected the level of salt precipitation, and that vertical permeability enhanced the buoyancy effect which increased the growth of the salt barrier. The porosity also affected both the level of localized salt precipitation and dry-out zone extension depending on injection rates. High temperature injected CO2 promoted the vertical movement of the CO2 plume, which accelerated localized salt precipitation, but at the same time caused a decrease in the density of the injected CO2. The combination of these two effects eventually decreased bottomhole pressure. Considering the injectivity degradation, a method is proposed for decreasing the pressure build-up and increasing injectivity by assigning a ‘skin zone’ that represents a local region with a transmissivity different from that of the surrounding aquifer.

Migration behavior of supercritical and liquid CO2 in a stratified system: Experiments and numerical simulations

Multiple scenarios of upward CO2 migration driven by both injection-induced pressure and buoyancy force were investigated in a horizontally and vertically stratified core utilizing a core-flooding system with a 2-D X-ray scanner. Two reservoir-type scenarios were considered: (1) the terrestrial reservoir scenario (10 MPa and 50°C), where CO2 exists in a supercritical state and (2) the deep-sea sediment reservoir scenario (28 MPa and 25°C), where CO2 is stored in the liquid phase. The core-flooding experiments showed a 36% increase in migration rate in the vertical core setting compared with the horizontal setting, indicating the significance of the buoyancy force under the terrestrial reservoir scenario. Under both reservoir conditions, the injected CO2 tended to find a preferential flow path (low capillary entry pressure and high-permeability (high-k) path) and bypass the unfavorable pathways, leaving low CO2 saturation in the low-permeability (low-k) layers. No distinctive fingering was observed as the CO2 moved upward, and the CO2 movement was primarily controlled by media heterogeneity. The CO2 saturation in the low-k layers exhibited a more sensitive response to injection rates, implying that the increase in CO2 injection rates could be more effective in terms of storage capacity in the low-k layers in a stratified reservoir. Under the deep-sea sediment condition, the storage potential of liquid CO2 was more than twice as high as that of supercritical CO2 under the terrestrial reservoir scenario. In the end, multiphase transport simulations were conducted to assess the effects of heterogeneity on the spatial variation of pressure buildup, CO2 saturation, and CO2 flux. Finally, we showed that a high gravity number ( Ngr) tended to be more influenced by the heterogeneity of the porous media.

Flow Dynamics of \hbox {CO}_{2}/brine at the Interface Between the Storage Formation and Sealing Units in a Multi-layered Model

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Two-phase flow visualization under reservoir conditions for highly heterogeneous conglomerate rock: A core-scale study for geologic carbon storage

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Apparatus and method of measuring porosity and permeability of dioxide carbon underground storage medium

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A method of estimating sequential average unsaturated zone travel times from precipitation and water table level time series data

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