CO2 injection and storage - Short and long-term behaviour at different spatial scales

Projections of energy usage generally agree that the world will be heavily reliant on fossil fuels well into the second half of the 21st Century. Until our energy demands can be met by alternative sources, geological storage of CO2 in depleted petroleum reservoirs and deep saline aquifers is widely acknowledged to offer one of the most promising and practical means to reduce CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning power stations in the developed world and more importantly in rapidly developing nations such as China and India. Estimated reductions in CO2 emission from carbon capture and storage from fossil fuel generating stations can be as high as 90%.
The UK Government has an ambitious target to reduce CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050, and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is expected to play a major role to meet this target. Although CO2 has been injected into petroleum reservoirs for over 50 years to improve oil recovery, there are still many uncertainties that must be addressed before governments will commit to the level of CCS that is needed to have a significant impact on CO2 emissions. A large amount of research has been initiated in many countries to address these uncertainties. In addition, several CO2 storage pilot studies have been completed or are in progress both on- and off-shore as well as within depleted petroleum reservoirs and saline aquifers.
This project addresses the gaps in our current knowledge in this field through an integrated laboratory and numerical modelling approach. The main objectives of the project can be summarised as:-
- to develop methodologies to optimise CO2 injection well placement and control strategies accounting for uncertainties and influence on neighbouring licenses.
- to establish the effects of in situ pressure and temperature conditions on caprock fracture closure and fault reactivation through laboratory and numerical investigations.
- to investigate and improve our understanding of the in situ wellbore cement/rock and cement caprock behaviour in order to assess well integrity.
- to develop novel wellbore and caprock leakage mitigation and remediation technologies utilising sealants and induced mineral precipitation processes.

Beneficiaries for Societal and Economic Impacts: A broad range of stakeholders have been identified and are expected to benefit from our work in the short and the longer term.

UK Policymakers- The proposed project will generate robust and reliable evidence on two of the most significant North Sea CO2 storage systems one of which is currently considered for UK's competition for £1bn in capital funding available to support commercial scale CCS projects. The other formation, the Rotliegend Group of the Southern and Northern North Sea stretches from the eastern shores of the UK to Poland while the northern Permian basin terminates east of mainland Denmark. In both basins, Rotliegend Group aeolian and fluvial sandstones form good quality reservoirs for hydrocarbons. The risk perception studies and stakeholder engagement workshop to be organised will provide expert knowledge that UK policymakers will be able to utilise particularly approaching the general public with regards to CO2 storage. The expert knowledge that will be generated in the project, held in UK academic and research institutions with a long track record in CCS research, will certainly inform strategic decisions for national and European policy regarding the CO2 storage in these formations.

UK Regulators- The project will provide ground-breaking new knowledge in Task 1.3 and 1.4 regarding CO2 storage license optimisation and basin scale management that will be used to provide technical advice, develop and maintain fit-for-purpose licensing regulation. WP3 will develop new technology and testing methods that the regulators will be able to use to establish site closure and remediation guidance for CO2 storage projects.

NGOs- The availability of reliable, independent advice and expertise is particularly important for NGOs which typically have very small expert in-house teams.

Industry- CO2 storage system developers & operators will benefit from the ideas and research outputs from the project on strategic issues as well as specifically on the design, operation, closure and remediation of CO2 storage projects. Progressive energy and their collaborators in the UK CCS competition will support project steering and help to ensure that the many potential impacts of the project are made widely available. They will directly benefit from close involvement in the project, particularly through understanding the key determinants of storage system performance.

Technology and Innovation hubs- ETI is supporting the proposed project and will make accessible to the partners their database developed in the UK Storage Appraisal Project (UK SAP) and will benefit from the specialist knowledge and expertise that will be generated in the project. The UK Technology Strategy Board, as UK's national innovation agency, responsible for supporting new innovation to move ideas closer to the commercial market will also benefit from interaction with the consortium and the experience of the interaction between the industrial partners supporting the project and the academic and research institutes conducting the research.

SMEs- The availability of original academic research is particularly important to identify focus for developments with limited budget, also benefit from the testing of products (e.g. sealants, CO2 injection, wellbore completion technologies) and the modelling work to be carried out.

Academic beneficiaries - An important objective is to disseminate the methods & results generated through the project widely, through the publication of results in learned journals and conferences, activities to engage with the very broad stakeholder base and where appropriate through formal exploitation of the intellectual property. The project will take an active role as part of the UKCCSRC and will undertake a wider networking role with the research and user community outside the project membership. Dedicated resources have already been allocated to these tasks.