Project Summary
Deploying CCS will require monitoring strategies over decades. Recognising this, ANLEC R&D commissioned a study to develop specifications for a set of well designs that included a range of complementary instrumentation with optimum configurations.
Specific features of the South West Hub (SW Hub) were used as the basis for design of such a system.
In Western Australia, 100km south of the city of Perth, the SW Hub is targeting the saline aquifer of the Lesueur Sandstone at a depth of 2-3km for commercial-scale CO2 sequestration. In support of the drilling of these wells, there is a need to consider the relative location of the wells and the monitoring instrumentation required to maximise their contributions to the overall SW Hub objectives. This research project provided the technical specifications and costs for various measurement, with monitoring and verification options that can be incorporated into the SW Hub well-based monitoring process.
This research added value to the core activity being conducted by SW Hub by:
- delivering a series of options for the well-based monitoring program including downhole and surface requirements;
- considering optimal monitoring technologies and testing methodologies requisite for a potential early testing phase; and
- providing a monitoring system that will allow long-term monitoring and research opportunities to be taken at the SW Hub.
Key results:
- A critiqued list of data acquisition, monitoring technologies and applications for geologic carbon storage.
- Monitoring options, with more than one monitoring scheme to address the current uncertainties around storage suitability.
- An application-specific case study for the SW Hub.
- Considerations (economic and technical) for pre-existing wells to be converted into monitoring wells.
Monitoring emphasis on containment verification, with all four monitoring wells having completions in the Yalgorup Member above the storage interval.
