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Download or read book An Evaluation of the Carbon Sequestration Potential of the Cambro-Ordovician Strata of the Illinois and Michigan Basins written by and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part 1 of this report focuses on results of the western Kentucky carbon storage test, and provides a basis for evaluating injection and storage of supercritical CO2 in Cambro-Ordovician carbonate reservoirs throughout the U.S. Midcontinent. This test demonstrated that the Cambro- Ordovician Knox Group, including the Beekmantown Dolomite, Gunter Sandstone, and Copper Ridge Dolomite in stratigraphic succession from shallowest to deepest, had reservoir properties suitable for supercritical CO2 storage in a deep saline reservoir hosted in carbonate rocks, and that strata with properties sufficient for long-term confinement of supercritical CO2 were present in the deep subsurface. Injection testing with brine and CO2 was completed in two phases. The first phase, a joint project by the Kentucky Geological Survey and the Western Kentucky Carbon Storage Foundation, drilled the Marvin Blan No. 1 carbon storage research well and tested the entire Knox Group section in the open borehole ÃØÂ0Â3 including the Beekmantown Dolomite, Gunter Sandstone, and Copper Ridge Dolomite ÃØÂ0Â3 at 1152ÃØÂ0Â32255 m, below casing cemented at 1116 m. During Phase 1 injection testing, most of the 297 tonnes of supercritical CO2 was displaced into porous and permeable sections of the lowermost Beekmantown below 1463 m and Gunter. The wellbore was then temporarily abandoned with a retrievable bridge plug in casing at 1105 m and two downhole pressure-temperature monitoring gauges below the bridge plug pending subsequent testing. Pressure and temperature data were recorded every minute for slightly more than a year, providing a unique record of subsurface reservoir conditions in the Knox. In contrast, Phase 2 testing, this study, tested a mechanically-isolated dolomitic-sandstone interval in the Gunter. Operations in the Phase 2 testing program commenced with retrieval of the bridge plug and long-term pressure gauges, followed by mechanical isolation of the Gunter by plugging the wellbore with cement below the injection zone at 1605.7 m, then cementing a section of a 14-cm casing at 1470.4ÃØÂ0Â31535.6. The resultant 70.1-m test interval at 1535.6ÃØÂ0Â31605.7 m included nearly all of the Gunter sandstone facies. During the Phase 2 injection, 333 tonnes of CO2 were injected into the thick, lower sand section in the sandy member of the Gunter. Following the completion of testing, the injection zone below casing at 1116 m in the Marvin Blan No. 1 well, and wellbore below 305 m was permanently abandoned with cement plugs and the wellsite reclaimed. The range of most-likely storage capacities found in the Knox in the Marvin Blan No. 1 is 1000 tonnes per surface hectare in the Phase 2 Gunter interval to 8685 tonnes per surface hectare if the entire Knox section were available including the fractured interval near the base of the Copper Ridge. By itself the Gunter lacks sufficient reservoir volume to be considered for CO2 storage, although it may provide up to 18% of the reservoir volume available in the Knox. Regional extrapolation of CO2 storage potential based on the results of a single well test can be problematic, although indirect evidence of porosity and permeability can be demonstrated in the form of active saltwater-disposal wells injecting into the Knox. The western Kentucky region suitable for CO2 storage in the Knox is limited updip, to the east and south, by the depth at which the base of the Maquoketa shale lies above the depth required to ensure storage of CO2 in its supercritical state and the deepest a commercial well might be drilled for CO2 storage. The resulting prospective region has an area of approximately 15,600 km2, beyond which it is unlikely that suitable Knox reservoirs may be developed. Faults in the subsurface, which serve as conduits for CO2 migration and compromise sealing strata, may mitigate the area with Knox reservoirs suitable for CO2 storage. The results of the injection tests in the Marvin Blan No. 1, however, provide a basis f ...