CO2 STORAGE CAPACITY ESTIMATION FOR THE SAN JUAN BASIN

The utilization of fossil fuels comes with huge volumes of Carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions into the atmosphere. The increase in atmospheric CO₂ is considered as the main driver of climate change and global warming. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) in saline formations has emerged as one of the potential ways of reducing anthropogenic CO₂ in the atmosphere. Successful implementation of CCS technology at industrial scale requires significant knowledge of the storage capacity of the targeted saline formation. The expressions for calculating the volumetric CO₂ storage resource incorporates the average CO₂ density evaluated at pressure and temperature conditions representative of the storage conditions of the deep saline aquifer, and a storage efficiency factor representing the practical and physical limitations that reduce the total pore volume that the CO₂ can occupy. In this work, we utilized two approaches including simulation and laboratory based analytical process to estimate the storage efficiency factor for the targeted formations within the San Juan Basin. The level of uncertainty in the storage efficiency factor, CO₂ density and other geological parameters were accessed and used to estimate the probabilistic CO₂ storage capacity within the basin. The parametric method was used to estimate the probabilistic storage capacity.

Key words: Carbon Capture; Storage; Efficiency Factor; Saline Formation; Pore Volume