--> Abstract: CO2 "Storage Growth" in Sedimentary Basins: Linking Assessments of Storage Capacity in Oil and Gas Reservoirs with Storage Capacities of Salt Water Formations, by Robert C. Burruss, Sean T. Brennan, and W. Matthew Burns; #90039 (2005)

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CO2 "Storage Growth" in Sedimentary Basins: Linking Assessments of Storage Capacity in Oil and Gas Reservoirs with Storage Capacities of Salt Water Formations

Robert C. Burruss, Sean T. Brennan, and W. Matthew Burns
U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA

To assess the potential of sedimentary basins to store CO2 captured from industrial processes, methodologies must be developed for evaluation of the storage capacity and quality of oil and gas reservoirs and salt water formations. They must provide a mechanism to identify specific locations for potential storage projects so that sites can be evaluated for geologic integrity, environmental risks, and financial costs. Within a given basin, the known resources of oil and gas fields provide “verifiable” storage locations but yield the smallest estimates of storage volume. The capacities of salt water formations are larger, typically by an order of magnitude, but specific storage locations and storage “quality”, i.e. geologic integrity and trapping mechanism, are poorly constrained, making financial evaluations difficult. These two storage types are linked in basins in which oil and gas reservoirs have a downdip, salt water-bearing component. The location and known volume of the oil and gas traps allows initial estimates of economic factors for storage projects, whereas the larger volume of the “water-leg” of the petroleum-producing horizon provides the space for potential future “growth” of storage capacity, analogous to “reserve growth” in petroleum resource evaluations. Storage projects at the scale of 1000 megawatt, or larger, electricity- and hydrogen-generating stations will require storage volumes of 1 billion BOE or more over their lifetimes. The number of known petroleum-bearing traps of this size in North America is limited, requiring identification of verifiable storage volumes in adjacent salt water formations as volumes of captured CO2 emissions grow with time.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90039©2005 AAPG Calgary, Alberta, June 16-19, 2005