ULTimateCO2 Project: Field Experiment in an Underground Rock Laboratory to Study the Well Integrity in the Context of CO2 Geological Storage

Wells drilled through low-permeable caprock are potential connections between the CO2 storage reservoir and overlying sensitive targets like aquifers and targets located at the surface. The wellbore integrity can be compromised due to in situ operations, including drilling, completion, operations and abandonment or to geochemical degradation of the caprock-cement-casing system. We present here an experimental set-up in the underground rock laboratory of Mont-Terri (St Ursanne, canton of Jura, Switzerland): the drilling and well completion in the laboratory will be done in the aim of reconstructing interfaces between the caprock, the cement and the casing steel that would be close to the ones observed in situ. These well features will then be dipped within a CO2 stream, during a given time period before a final over-coring. Such an experiment should provide new insights on the quality of bounding between casing/cement/clay interfaces and its evolution due to geochemical reactions. In parallel, a modeling effort is performed focused on both geochemical and transport aspects of the interactions between the fluids and the well compartments.