Geologic storage of CO₂ has gained significance, largely due to it being a green-house gas (GHG) and concerns related to impacts on climate from GHG emissions. The literature and experience from industrial analogs indicate that wellbores (both active/inactive or abandoned) may represent the most likely route for escape of the injected CO₂ from the storage reservoirs. Therefore, sound injection well design and life cycle well integrity of all wells is of critical importance in such projects, particularly from a storage perspective of 1000 years or more.

Challenges related to safe long-term CO₂ storage and its economics, principally in deep saline formations and to a lesser extent in depleted oil and gas reservoirs, can be broken down into two main categories: (1) Well integrity challenges and (2) Injectivity or Regularity challenges. This presentation will present key engineering factors that have to be addressed from a well integrity (primary) and injectivity/injected volume (secondary) perspective to enable a CO₂ geologic storage project to be a success.

In a CO₂ injection well, the principal well design considerations include pressure, thermal stresses, corrosion-resistant materials (tubulars and cements) and injection rates. Proper maintenance of CO₂ injection wells is important to avoid loss of well integrity. Plugging and abandonment procedures (and risks from legacy wellbores) are also important to ensure that the injected CO₂ will not escape out of the stored reservoir and are adequately addressed with sound engineering practices and regulatory compliance. Industry experience, particularly with CO₂ EOR, natural gas storage and acid/sour gas wells shows that new CO₂ storage injection wells can maintain life cycle well integrity if designed, constructed, operated and monitored as per current state-of-the-art design specifications (e.g. use of WELLCAT^TM, DrillPlan^TM, and other in-house proprietary software) and regulatory requirements.

This webinar is categorized under the Drilling and the Health, Safety, Environment, and Sustainability technical disciplines.

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For more information on this topic, please check out the SPE suggested reading links below. Here you will find topic-related books, publications, and papers for purchase in OnePetro.

OnePetro Papers:

Northern Sahara aquifers protection. Casing corrosion problems and defining new well construction performance objectives. Case study: Hassi Messaoud Oilfield in Algeria

Well Integrity Issues in Malacca Strait Contract Area

Robust Implementation of Corrosion Inhibition Squeeze (CIS) Program Extends the Well Completion Lifetime (Case Study)

Study On The Well Control Safety During Formation High-Sulfur Gas Invasion

Well Integrity and Reliability Management in a Life Cycle Perspective

Simulating Oil Recovery During CO2 Sequestration Into a Mature Oil Reservoir

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