Background
The oil and gas industry has made the energy transition a primary focus. The International Energy Agency (IEA) notes that this sector contributes approximately 45% of the world's total Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. The effectiveness of a CCS (carbon capture and storage) initiative is closely tied to how the public views its potential to significantly reduce industrial carbon emissions on a large scale. Displaying proficiency in storing effectively relies on the capacity to oversee the surroundings and forecast the movement and mechanics of the reservoir before, during, and after injection. A successful CCS heavily relies on the stability of the cap rock and the accuracy in modeling and anticipating subsurface shifts and CO2 movement using numerical and analytical models across various timeframes, be it short or long-term. This project seeks to conduct geomechanical and petrographic studies that can aid the assessment of cap rock integrity and facilitate the monitoring or mitigation of CO2 migration above the cap rock.
Objectives
- To characterize and understand geological formations involved in carbon storage and its success.
- To evaluate cap rock integrity as efficient seals for CO2 storage through selected geomechanical and petrographic analyses.
Proposed Method
- Data Collection: Fieldwork and investigation of cap rocks shall be conducted to retrieve various core samples for testing and analyses.
- Geomechanic & Petrographic assessments: Core samples will be examined by petrographic and geochemical tools to determine diagenesis, its environment(s), and history so that its influence in the creation of impermeable sealing zones can be ascertained.
- Knowledge Gap Analysis: Knowledge gap analysis shall be conducted to direct data mobilization towards a more robust assessment in the near future.