CO₂ storage in depleted oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico

Journal Article · Tue Mar 20 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijggc.2018.02.022· OSTI ID:1429440

Agartan, Elif ^[1]; Gaddipati, Manohar ^[2]; Yip, Yeung ^[2]; Savage, Bill ^[2]; Ozgen, Chet ^[2]

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1. NITEC LLC, Denver, CO (United States); NITEC LLC
2. NITEC LLC, Denver, CO (United States)

Depleted oil and gas reservoirs are one of the prime-candidate formations for geologic CO₂ storage. Although both the geological structure and the physical properties of most of them have been extensively studied and characterized, there is limited data on the assessment of the CO₂ storage capacity, especially in the offshore fields. The purpose of this study is to develop a high-level quantitative assessment of the CO₂ volume that can be stored in depleted oil and gas fields in the Federal offshore regions of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), both on a field-by-field and on a reservoir-by-reservoir basis. In this study, we simulated CO₂ storage in 461 of the depleted oil and gas reservoirs (73 fields) among 3514 reservoirs (675 fields) in the GOM (2013 BOEM Reserves database). Based on the simulation results, we improved the Department of Energy (DOE) CO₂ Storage Resource Estimate Equation to make more refined and accurate estimates of storable CO₂ volumes. Newly revised efficiency factor (ERoil/gas) correlates better with hydrocarbon recovery factor (HCRF), which is found to be a strong indicator of the CO₂ storage capacity of the reservoir. The higher HCRF results in higher ERoil/gas. The further investigations resulted in an improved, material balance-based correlation—which is called the Production-CO₂ Storage Correlation—between cumulative production (free gas, oil and water) at reservoir conditions and CO₂ storage volume at standard conditions. This relationship, which is unique for all three types of reservoirs (gas, oil and combination), allows for making direct estimates of CO₂ storage volume using only existing production data. Application of these correlations to all of the depleted fields (3514 reservoirs) yields CO₂ storage capacities of 4748 MMtons, and the CO₂ storage capacity in all 1295 depleted and active fields (13,289 reservoirs) in the GOM calculated to be 21.57 Billion tons. If a 5000 psia surface injection pressure constraint was applied, these volumes would be reduced to 4075 MMtons for all depleted fields only and to 15.80 Billion tons for all depleted and active fields in the GOM. Therefore, the production-CO₂ storage correlations can be used to make more accurate CO₂ storage volume estimates in all onshore and offshore depleted oil and gas fields.

• Research Organization: NITEC LLC, Denver, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE; USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE)
• Grant/Contract Number: FE0026392
• OSTI ID: 1429440
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1429395; OSTI ID: 1582791
• Journal Information: International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, Journal Name: International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control Journal Issue: C Vol. 72; ISSN 1750-5836
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

03 NATURAL GAS
04 OIL SHALES AND TAR SANDS
CO2 storage
Gulf of Mexico
depleted reservoirs
storage efficiency factor
volumetric storage