San Juan Basin Enhanced Coalbed Methane (ECBM)-Carbon Storage Pilot: Role of Pre-Injection Site Characterization in Project Design

Young, Genevieve B.C.¹, Fatma B. Gorucu², Scott R. Reeves² (1) Colorado Geological Survey, Denver, CO (2) Advanced Resources International, Houston, TX

The Southwestern Regional Partnership on CO2 Sequestration is conducting an ECBM pilot in the San Juan Basin as part of the ongoing DOE/NETL Carbon Capture and Storage program. The primary goal of this pilot is to demonstrate the efficacy of using CO2 to enhance coalbed methane recovery particularly near reservoir abandonment pressure while also evaluating the suitability of coal seams for longer-term carbon storage. Successful demonstration results will be directly scalable to a large portion of the basin for significant, low-cost CO2 sequestration.

The ConocoPhillips Pump Canyon pilot is located within the highly productive San Juan Basin Fruitland “Fairway”. The combination of high permeability and low water production at low reservoir pressure are well suited to assessing issues related to injectivity loss due matrix swelling with CO2 injection. Reservoir simulations, incorporating available lab and test data, are being utilized to develop an improved understanding of reservoir properties in the 640-acre pilot area. This simulation work incorporates geostatistical methods to fully examine the variability of permeability and porosity in arriving at a history match solution.

Preliminary results have already identified a reservoir “boundary” across which there appears to be no gas flow or pressure communication. In addition, effective permeability may be significantly higher than originally anticipated. Although the proposed project design estimated 75,000 tons CO2 injection during a one year period, this characterization analysis is critical to optimizing the total CO2 injection volume, injection rate over time, and how it will disperse after injection.