Geocellular model of St. Peter Sandstone for University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign DDU Feasibility Study

Dataset · Mon Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.15121/1495414· OSTI ID:1495414

Damico, James ^[1]

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1. University of Illinois

The geocellular model of the St. Peter Sandstone was constructed for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign DDU feasibility study. Starting with the initial area of review (18.0 km by 18.1 km [11.2 miles by 11.3 miles]) the boundaries of the model were trimmed down to 9.7 km by 9.7 km (6 miles by 6 miles) to ensure that the model enclosed a large enough volume so that the cones of depression of both the production and injection wells would not interact with each other, while at the same time minimizing the number of cells to model to reduce computational time. The grid-cell size was set to 61.0 m by 61.0 m (200 feet by 200 feet) for 160 nodes in the X and Y directions. The top surface of the St. Peter Sandstone was provided by geologists working on the project, and the average thickness of the formation was taken from the geologic prospectus they provided. An average thickness of 68.6 m (225 feet) was used for the St. Peter Sandstone, resulting in 45 layers for the model. Petrophysical data was taken from available rotary sidewall core data (Morrow et al., 2017). As geothermal properties (thermal conductivity, specific heat capacity) are closely related to mineralogy, specifically the percentage of quartz, available mineralogical data was assembled and used with published data of geothermal values to determine these properties (Waples and Waples, 2004; Robertson, 1988). The St. Peter Sandstone was divided into facies according to similar geothermal and petrophysical properties, and distributed according to available geophysical log data and prevailing interpretations of the depositional/diagenetic history (Will et al. 2014). Petrophysical and geothermal properties were distributed through geostatistical means according to the associated distributions for each lithofacies. The formation temperature was calculated, based on data from continuous temperature geophysical log from a deep well drilled into the Precambrian basement at the nearby Illinois Basin Decatur Project (IBDP) where CO2 is currently being sequestered (Schlumberger, 2012). Salinity values used in the model were taken from regional studies of brine chemistry in the St. Peter Sandstone, including for the IBDP (e.g., Panno et al. 2018). After being reviewed by the project's geologists, the model was then passed onto the geological engineers to begin simulations of the geothermal reservoir and wellbores.

• Research Organization: DOE Geothermal Data Repository; University of Illinois
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Geothermal Technologies Program (EE-4G)
• Contributing Organization: University of Illinois
• DOE Contract Number: EE0008106
• OSTI ID: 1495414
• Report Number(s): 1116
• Availability: [e-mail]
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY
3-D
3D
DDU
Deep Direct-Use
Illinois
Illinois Basin
Mt Simon
St. Peter Sandstone
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
characterization
density
depth
energy
feasibility
geocellular modeling
geologic
geology
geothermal
heat capacity
hydrologic
mechanical
model
permeability
petrophysical
porosity
properties
reservoir
specific heat capacity
structural
thermal
thermal conductivity
thickness