Assessing the efficiency of long-term CO₂ geological storage using an advanced multiphase compositional simulator

Abstract

CO₂ sequestration has a critical role in mitigating climate change impacts, thus we rely on numerical simulations to capture the processes of CO₂ injection, migration, and long-term storage. This paper presents a comprehensive benchmarking study of an in-house built multiphase compositional simulator for CO₂ storage modelling applications, emphasizing the accurate modeling of trapping mechanisms within geological formations. We perform rigorous tests to benchmark the simulator's performance against established analytical solutions, focusing on the evolution of CO₂ plumes, leakage rates through abandoned wells, and interactions of CO₂ with the formation water. Our results demonstrate the simulator's robustness in handling complex subsurface phenomena, including variable property simulations and the effects of hysteresis on plume behavior. These comparisons offer insights into the effects of parameter choices and boundary conditions on the simulation outcomes. Our work not only validates the simulator against known analytical solutions and numerical benchmarks, but also lays a foundation for future enhancements in our code, particularly in the area of geochemical interactions and the assessment of CO₂ leakage on the security of the storage media.

Keywords

CO₂ storage / Trapping mechanisms / Numerical simulations / Benchmarking

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Abdul Salam Abd: Writing – original draft, Visualization, Validation, Software, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization. Ahmad Abushaikha: Supervision, Software, Resources, Project administration, Methodology, Funding acquisition, Conceptualization.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Ahmad Abushaikha reports financial support was provided by Qatar National Research Fund.

Acknowledgements

This publication was supported by the Academic Research Grant ARG01-0502-230056 from Qatar Research, Development and Innovation (QRDI) Council.

References

[1] R. Knutti, J. Sedláček, Robustness and uncertainties in the new cmip5 climate model projections, Nat. Clim. Change 3 (2013) 369-373.

[2] S. Solomon, G.-K. Plattner , R. Knutti, P. Friedlingstein, Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 106 (6) (2009) 1704-1709.

[3] D.L. Royer , R.A. Berner , I.P. Montañez , N.J. Tabor , D.J. Beerling , et al. , CO₂ as a primary driver of phanerozoic climate, GSA Today (Geol. Soc. Am.) 14 (3) (2004) 4-10.

[4] P. Kelemen, S.M. Benson, H. Pilorgé, P. Psarras, J. Wilcox, An overview of the status and challenges of CO₂ storage in minerals and geological formations, Front. Clim. 1 (9) (2019).

[5] O. Massarweh, A.S. Abushaikha, CO₂ sequestration in subsurface geological formations: a review of trapping mechanisms and monitoring techniques, Earth Sci. Rev. (2024) 104793.

[6] M.H. Mosleh , M. Sedighi , M. Babaei , M. Turner , Geological sequestration of carbon dioxide, in: Managing Global Warming, Elsevier, 2019, pp. 487-500.

[7] O. Massarweh, A.S. Abushaikha, The use of surfactants in enhanced oil recovery: a review of recent advances, Energy Rep. 6 (2020) 3150-3178.

[8] A. Kumar, R. Ozah, M. Noh, G.A. Pope, S. Bryant, K. Sepehrnoori, L.W. Lake, Reservoir simulation of CO₂ storage in deep saline aquifers, SPE J. 10 (3) (2005) 336-348.

[9] A. Kamashev, Y. Amanbek, Reservoir simulation of CO₂ storage using compositional flow model for geological formations in frio field and precaspian basin, Energies 14 (23) (2021) 8023.

[10] T. Urych, J. Chećko, M. Magdziarczyk, A. Smoliński, Numerical simulations of carbon dioxide storage in selected geological structures in north-western Poland, Front. Energy Res. 10 (2022) 827794.

[11] P. Hallinger, R. Wang, The evolution of simulation-based learning across the disciplines, 1965-2018: a science map of the literature, Simulat. Gaming 51 (1) (2020) 9-32.

[12] T. Kalbacher, C. Park, U. Sauer, C. Schtze, H. Shao, A. Singh, J. Taron, W. Wang, N. Watanabe, A systematic benchmarking approach for geologic CO₂ injection and storage, Environ. Earth Sci. (2012), https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-012-1656-5.

[13] L. Li, A. Abushaikha, Joining the billion cell club: modelling of giant oil and gas fields using advanced simulation methods, in: Fourth EAGE WIPIC Workshop, 2022, European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers, 2022, pp. 1-3.

[14] L. Li, M. Khait, D. Voskov, K.M. Terekhov, A. Abushaikha, Applying massively parallel interface for mpfa scheme with advanced linearization for fluid flow in porous media, J. Petrol. Sci. Eng. 220 (2023) 111190.

[15] H. Class, A. Ebigbo, R. Helmig, H.K. Dahle, J.M. Nordbotten, M.A. Celia, P. Audigane, M. Darcis, J. Ennis-King, Y. Fan, et al., A benchmark study on problems related to CO₂ storage in geologic formations: summary and discussion of the results, Comput. Geosci. 13 (2009) 409-434.

[16] A.S. Abd , A. Abushaikha , D. Voskov , Coupling of rigorous multiphase flash with advanced linearization schemes for accurate compositional simulation, in: SPE Reservoir Simulation Conference?, SPE, 2021 page D011S007R006.

[17] A. Abd, D. Voskov, A. Abushaikha, Modelling CO₂ Dissolution in Brines for CO₂ Sequestration and Enhanced Oil Recovery Applications, Fourth EAGE WIPIC Workshop, 2022.

[18] D.V. Voskov , Operator-based linearization approach for modeling of multiphase multi-component flow in porous media, J. Comput. Phys. 337 (2017) 275-288.

[19] K. Kala, D. Voskov, Element balance formulation in reactive compositional flow and transport with parameterization technique, Comput. Geosci. 24 (2) (2019) 609-624.

[20] M. Khait, D. Voskov, Adaptive parameterization for solving of thermal/compositional nonlinear flow and transport with buoyancy, SPE J. 23 (2) (2018) 522-534.

[21] M. Khait, D. Voskov, Operator-based linearization for efficient modeling of geothermal processes, Geothermics 74 (2018) 7-18.

[22] A.S. Abd , A.S. Abushaikha , Reactive transport in porous media: a review of recent mathematical efforts in modeling geochemical reactions in petroleum subsurface reservoirs, SN Appl. Sci. 3 (4) (2021).

[23] A.S. Abd , N. Zhang , A.S. Abushaikha , Modeling the effects of capillary pressure with the presence of full tensor permeability and discrete fracture models using the mimetic finite difference method, Transport Porous Media 137 (3) (2021) 739-767.

[24] L. Li, A. Abushaikha, A fully-implicit parallel framework for complex reservoir simulation with mimetic finite difference discretization and operator-based linearization, Comput. Geosci. (2021).

[25] S. Nardean, M. Ferronato, A. Abushaikha, A novel and efficient preconditioner for solving lagrange multipliers-based discretization schemes for reservoir simulations, ECMOR XVII (2020).

[26] A.S. Abushaikha , K.M. Terekhov , A fully implicit mimetic finite difference scheme for general purpose subsurface reservoir simulation with full tensor permeability, J. Comput. Phys. 406 (2020) 109194.

[27] N. Zhang, A. Abushaikha, Mimetic finite difference simulation of multiphase flow in carbonate fractured media in presence of capillary pressure, in: Third EAGE WIPIC Workshop: Reservoir Management in Carbonates, 2019.

[28] N. Zhang, A.S. Abushaikha , Fully Implicit Reservoir Simulation Using Mimetic Finite Difference Method in Fractured Carbonate Reservoirs, Day 2 Wed, 2019. September 18, 2019.

[29] D. Hjeij, A. Abushaikha, Comparing Advanced Discretization Methods for Complex Hydrocarbon Reservoirs, Day 2 Wed, 2019. September 18, 2019.

[30] D. Hjeij, A. Abushaikha, An Investigation of the Performance of the Mimetic Finite Difference Scheme for Modelling Fluid Flow in Anisotropic Hydrocarbon Reservoirs, Day 3 Wed, 2019. June 05, 2019.

[31] A.S. Abushaikha , D.V. Voskov , H.A. Tchelepi , Fully Implicit Mixed Hybrid finite-element Formulation for general-purpose Compositional Reservoir Simulation, Day 2 Tue, 2017. February 21, 2017.

[32] D.V. Voskov , H.A. Tchelepi , Comparison of nonlinear formulations for two-phase multi-component eos based simulation, J. Petrol. Sci. Eng. 82 (2012) 101-111.

[33] A. Iranshahr, D. Voskov, H. Tchelepi, Generalized negative-flash method for multiphase multicomponent systems, Fluid Phase Equilib. 299 (2) (2010) 272-284.

[34] H. Rachford, J. Rice, Procedure for use of electronic digital computers in calculating flash vaporization hydrocarbon equilibrium, J. Petrol. Technol. 4 (10) (1952) 19-23.

[35] R. Zaydullin, D.V. Voskov, H.A. Tchelepi, Comparison of eos-based and k-values-based methods for three-phase thermal simulation, Transport Porous Media 116 (2017).

[36] D.-Y. Peng , D.B. Robinson , A new two-constant equation of state, Ind. Eng. Chem. Fundam. 15 (1) (1976) 59-64.

[37] N.N. Akinfiev , L.W. Diamond , Thermodynamic description of aqueous nonelectrolytes at infinite dilution over a wide range of state parameters, Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 67 (4) (2003) 613-629.

[38] Z. Ziabakhsh-Ganji, H. Kooi, An equation of state for thermodynamic equilibrium of gas mixtures and brines to allow simulation of the effects of impurities in subsurface co2 storage, Int. J. Greenh. Gas Control 11 (2012).

[39] G. Ekechukwu, R. Loubens, M. Araya Polo, Long short-term memory-driven forecast of co2 injection in porous media, Phys. Fluids 34 (5) (2022).

[40] S.E. Buckley , M. Leverett , Mechanism of fluid displacement in sands, Transactions of the AIME 146 (1) (1942) 107-116.

[41] J.M. Nordbotten, M.A. Celia, S. Bachu, Injection and storage of CO₂ in deep saline aquifers: analytical solution for CO₂ plume evolution during injection, Transport Porous Media 58 (2005) 339-360.

[42] M.A. Celia , S. Bachu , J.M. Nordbotten , S.E. Gasda , H.K. Dahle , Quantitative estimation of CO₂ leakage from geological storage: analytical models, numerical models, and data needs, in: Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies 7, Elsevier, 2005, pp. 663-671.

[43] S. Bachu, J.M. Nordbotten, M.A. Celia, Evaluation of the spread of acid-gas plumes injected in deep saline aquifers in Western Canada as an analogue for CO₂ injection into continental sedimentary basins, in: Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies 7, Elsevier, 2005, pp. 479-487.

[44] J.M. Nordbotten, M.A. Celia, Similarity solutions for fluid injection into confined aquifers, J. Fluid Mech. 561 (2006) 307-327.

[45] J.M. Nordbotten, M.A. Celia, S. Bachu, Analytical solutions for leakage rates through abandoned wells, Water Resour. Res. 40 (4) (2004).

[46] J.M. Nordbotten , M.A. Celia , S. Bachu , H.K. Dahle , Semianalytical solution for CO₂ leakage through an abandoned well, Environ. Sci. Technol. 39 (2) (2005) 602-611.

[47] A. Ebigbo, H. Class, R. Helmig, CO₂ leakage through an abandoned well: problem-oriented benchmarks, Comput. Geosci. 11 (2007) 103-115.

[48] R.H. Brooks , Hydraulic Properties of Porous Media, Colorado State University, 1965.

[49] S. Bachu, D. Bonijoly, J. Bradshaw, R. Burruss, S. Holloway, N.P. Christensen, O.M. Mathiassen, CO₂ storage capacity estimation: methodology and gaps, Int. J. Greenh. Gas Control 1 (4) (2007) 430-443.

[50] K. Pruess, Capacity Investigation of brine-bearing Sands for Geologic Sequestration of CO₂, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2002.

[51] A. Kopp, H. Class, R. Helmig, Investigations on CO₂ storage capacity in saline aquifers: part 1. Dimensional analysis of flow processes and reservoir characteristics, Int. J. Greenh. Gas Control 3 (3) (2009) 263-276.

[52] F. Al Hameli, H. Belhaj, M. Al Dhuhoori, CO₂ sequestration overview in geological formations: trapping mechanisms matrix assessment, Energies 15 (20) (2022) 7805.

[53] G.T. Eigestad , H.K. Dahle , B. Hellevang , F. Riis , W.T. Johansen , E. Øian , Geological modeling and simulation of CO₂ injection in the johansen formation, Comput. Geosci. 13 (2009) 435-450.

[54] N.A. Khan , CO₂ Storage in Depleted Gas Field Reservoir Model and Sensitivity Analysis Using Numerical Simulation Techniques, NTNU, 2022. Master’s thesis.