Assessing Uncertainty and Repeatability in Time-Lapse VSP Monitoring of CO2 Injection in a Brine Aquifer, Frio Formation, Texas (A Case Study)
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Earth Sciences Division
This study was done to assess the repeatability and uncertainty of time-lapse VSP response to CO2 injection in the Frio formation near Houston Texas. A work flow was built to assess the effect of time-lapse injected CO2 into two Frio brine reservoir intervals, the ‘C’ sand (Frio1) and the ‘Blue sand’ (Frio2). The time-lapse seismic amplitude variations with sensor depth for both reservoirs Frio1 and Frio2 were computed by subtracting the seismic response of the base survey from each of the two monitor seismic surveys. Source site 1 has been considered as one of the best sites for evaluating the time-lapse response after injection. For site 1, the computed timelapse NRMS levels after processing had been compared to the estimated time-lapse NRMS level before processing for different control reflectors, and for brine aquifers Frio1, and Frio2 to quantify detectability of amplitude difference. As the main interest is to analyze the time-lapse amplitude variations, different scenarios have been considered. Three different survey scenarios were considered: the base survey which was performed before injection, monitor1 performed after the first injection operation, and monitor2 which was after the second injection. The first scenario was base-monitor1, the second was basemonitor2, and the third was monitor1-monitor2. We considered three ‘control’ reflections above the Frio to assist removal of overburden changes, and concluded that third control reflector (CR3) is the most favorable for the first scenario in terms of NRMS response, and first control reflector (CR1) is the most favorable for the second and third scenarios in terms of NRMS response. The NRMS parameter is shown to be a useful measure to assess the effect of processing on time-lapse data. The overall NRMS for the Frio VSP data set was found to be in the range of 30% to 80% following basic processing. This could be considered as an estimated baseline in assessing the utility of VSP for CO2 monitoring. This study shows that the CO2 injection in brine reservoir Frio1 (the ‘C’ sand unit) does induce a relative change in amplitude response, and for Frio2 (the ‘Blue’ sand unit) an amplitude change has been also detected, but in both cases the uncertainty, as measured by NRMS indicates the reservoir changes are, at best, only slightly above the noise level, and often below the noise level of the overall data set.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC); USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231
- OSTI ID:
- 1172131
- Report Number(s):
- LBNL-6482E
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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