Seminar 15th March 2011 4 p.m. National Oceanography Centre, Room 074/02
Challenges in integrating fluid-flow, geomechanics and seismic modelling for reservoir characterisation
Dr Doug Angus
University of Leeds, School of Earth & Environment
- Web page
- http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/gg/seminars.php
- Categories
- Archaeology, Climate, Earth Observation, Oceanography, Sediment transport, Wave propagation
- Submitter
- Petrina Butler
Declining production from conventional hydrocarbon reservoirs and the potential for storing anthropogenic CO2 within saline reservoirs have lead to a greater focus on integrating fluid flow, geomechanics, rock physics, and seismic modelling.
In simple terms, the objective is to develop realistic models of the subsurface that can predict the behaviour of the reservoir and surrounding rock to production and/or injection of fluids.
For the case of hydrocarbon production, an integrated workflow allows more informed prediction capability to reduce production risks, optimize production programmes and hence potentially reduce costs.
For the not too dissimilar case of CO2 storage, integrated modelling will allow the design of efficient and economic injection and storage programmes, prediction of plume migration and integrity of storage sealing capacity, and hence help improve the quantification of risk.
In this presentation, I will discuss some of the work being done at the University of Leeds with colleagues at the University of Bristol and Rockfield Software Ltd. to integrate rock physics, fluid-flow, geomechanics and seismic modelling to predict the dynamic behaviour of reservoir systems to fluid production or injection.
In order to highlight some of the main challenges, I will present results from some simple test cases, a sub-volume of the Valhall chalk reservoir in the North Sea, and two pilot studies for on-shore carbon capture and storage (Weyburn, Canada and In Salah, Algeria).
Biography
Dr Doug Angus joined the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds as a RCUK Fellow in Future Energy Scenarios and is working on CO2 storage monitoring. His research focusses on the development and application of elastic and acoustic waveform modelling of seismic body-waves to various teleseismic, exploration and engineering problems.