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.