Modelling Medium-Depth CO2 Injection at the Svelvik CO2 Field Laboratory in Norway

Abstract

The CO2 field laboratory at the Svelvik ridge near Oslo, Norway, is presently being upgraded as part of the European research infrastructure initiative (the ECCSEL laboratories). The test site was established in 2010 by the SINTEF-coordinated "CO2FieldLab" project with the overall objective to study the performance of monitoring systems to detect and quantify CO2 migration and leakage. At the site there is a possibility of injecting CO2 in a sand-rich sedimentary interval at 60-m depth, under a clay-rich interval. The feasibility of using geophysical monitoring methods to detect and quantify such an injection was studied earlier for injection of nitrogen. Nitrogen, with a low solubility in brine, was used to get a clear saturation response. In this paper we revisit the modelling work and extend the scenarios by also modelling injection of CO2. The large difference between solubility of N2 and CO2 in reservoir brine gives markedly different behaviour of the injected gases. Results from these modelling studies will be useful in the mapping of options for future projects at the field laboratory.

Keywords: CO2 storage, Field laboratory, GHGT-14