Numerical simulation of carbon dioxide injection for enhanced gas recovery (CO2-EGR) in Altmark natural gas field

This paper studied the CO 2 -EGR in Altmark natural gas field with numerical simulations. The hydro-mechanical coupled simulations were run using a linked simulator TOUGH2MP-FLAC3D. In order to consider the gas mixing process, EOS7C was implemented in TOUGH2MP. A multi-layered 3D model (4.4 km × 2 km × 1 km) which consists of the whole reservoir, caprock and base rock was generated based on a history-matched PETREL model, originally built by GDF SUEZ E&P Deutschland GmbH for Altmark natural gas field. The model is heterogeneous and discretized into 26,015 grid blocks. In the simulation, 100,000 t CO 2 was injected in the reservoir through well S13 within 2 years, while gas was produced from the well S14. Some sensitivity analyses were also carried out. Simulation results show that CO 2 tends to migrate toward the production well S14 along a NW–SE fault. It reached the observation wells S1 and S16 after 2 years, but no breakthrough occurred in the production well. After 2 years of CO 2 injection, the reservoir pressure increased by 2.5 bar, which is beneficial for gas recovery. The largest uplift (1 mm) occurred at the bottom of the caprock. The deformation was small (elastic) and caprock integrity was not affected. With the injection rate doubled the average pressure increased by 5.3 bar. Even then the CO 2 did not reach the production well S14 after 2 years of injection. It could be concluded that the previous flow field was established during the primary gas production history. This former flow field, including CO 2 injection/CH 4 production rate during CO 2 -EGR and fault directions and intensity are the most important factors affecting the CO 2 transport.