Hadi Hajibeygi

Delft University of Technology

CO₂ storage in naturally fractured reservoirs: a multiscale simulation strategy

The IEA and IPCC reports indicate the crucial role of CO₂ capture and storage (CCS) in geological formations to combat climate change. Until now, however, only 30 Mt of CO2 is stored in geological formations, while the expected scale to reach by 2050 is 3-10 Gt per year. Scaling up CCS in geological formations depends highly on designing an appropriate simulation strategy to identify the CO₂ plume trapping during injection, migration and post-migration in highly heterogeneous formations. These formations can be also fractured, adding significantly the complexities of the simulation workflow. We report our multiscale simulation strategy devised to allow for reliable quantification of the CO₂ storage volumes in highly fractured and heterogeneous geological formations. To this end, we report on the successful commercial-grade development of our pEDFM package which enables any advanced simulator to benefit from explicit discrete fracture modeling capacity.