Dear Yohanes Nuwara Lubis,

indeed pressure buildup can be an issue when it comes to CO2 injection into reservoirs. There has been quite a few works on pressure buildup and potential geomechanical responses (e.g. fault reactivation). In general pressure build up will very much depend on reservoir properties and size, are there vertical seals ect. Important is also to note that for a certain mass of CO2 pressure change will be different at different depths as the density of CO2 changes. In my opinion a detailed geomechanical model is crucial for any injection site. Potential solutions to release pressure buildup could be producing brine before or during CO2 injection.

Here a list of publications which you may find helpful:

Grude, S., Landrø, M., Dvorkin, J., 2014. Pressure effects caused by CO2 injection in the Tubåen Fm., the Snøhvit field. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 27, 178–187. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijggc.2014.05.013

Vilarrasa, V., Carrera, J., 2015. Geologic carbon storage is unlikely to trigger large earthquakes and reactivate faults through which CO2 could leak. PNAS 112, 5938–5943. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1413284112

Rinaldi, A.P., Rutqvist, J., Cappa, F., 2014. Geomechanical effects on CO2 leakage through fault zones during large-scale underground injection. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 20, 117–131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijggc.2013.11.001

Mathias, S., González Martínez de Miguel, G., Thatcher, K., Zimmerman, R., 2011. Pressure Buildup During CO2 Injection into a Closed Brine Aquifer. Transport in Porous Media 89, 383–397. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-011-9776-z

It is possible to calculate the reservoir pressure and the geomechanical effects of CO2 injection by using one of the many existing 3D reservoir modelling softwares and a 3D geomechanical modelling software. These softwares are commercially available. My suggestion is to add a competent reservoir engineer (with working experience of oil and gas reservoirs) to your research team.

Johannes M. Miocic thankyou for your recommendations of the papers I should read more! I will review the papers and come back to you if I have any remarks or questions to raise for discussion. Yes, I'm doing geomechanical analysis with Mohr-Coulomb now and interested to know under how many increase in pressure will still keep the reservoir sustainable, because we all know that very high increase will put the reservoir nearer to failure.

Dear Yohanes Nuwara Lubis

The best method to evaluate geomechanical effects of CO2 injection in geological reservoir, is coupled geomechanical modeling, but there are some analytical methods to evaluate pore pressure, in-situ stress and displacement change during CO2 injection in geological reservoir, e.g:

Xu, Z., Fang, Y., Scheibe, T.D., Bonneville, A., 2012. A fluid pressure and deformation analysis for geological sequestration of carbon dioxide. Comput. Geosci. 46, 31–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2012.04.020

Hi Yohanes,

In case you are looking for analytical solutions for stress change and potential of fault reactivation and fracturing, you may want to see my publications and thesis on the subject of caprock integrity and stress change. Let me know if you need more details and if you have any questions.

Mehrdad

Mehrdad Soltanzadeh Dear sir, I'm interested. I'm very glad if you could share any of your publications/thesis regarding with it. Thankyou very much sir.