SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
Volume 12, Number 5, October 2009, pp. 660-670

SPE-108924-PA

Geoengineering and Economic Assessment of a Potential Carbon Capture and Storage Site in Southeast Queensland, Australia

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DOI  More information 10.2118/108924-PA http://dx.doi.org/10.2118/108924-PA

Citation

  • Cinar, Y., Neal, P.R., Allinson, W.G., and Sayers, J. 2009. Geoengineering and Economic Assessment of a Potential Carbon Capture and Storage Site in Southeast Queensland, Australia. SPE Res Eval & Eng  12 (5): 660-670. SPE-108924-PA. doi: 10.2118/108924-PA.

Discipline Categories

  • 6 Reservoir Description and Dynamics

Keywords

  • CO2 geosequestration, geoengineering, economics, CO2 injectivity, CO2 specific cost

Summary

This paper presents geoengineering and economic sensitivity analyses and assessments of the Wunger Ridge flank carbon capture and storage (CCS) site. Both geoengineering and economics are needed to derive the number of wells required to inject a certain amount of CO2 for a given period.

A numerical reservoir simulation examines injection rates ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 year for 25 years of injection. Primary factors affecting the ability to inject CO2 include permeability, formation fracture gradient, aquifer strength, and multiphase flow functions. Secondary factors include the solubility of CO2 in the formation brine, injection well location with respect to the flow barriers/low-permeability aquifers, model geometry including faults, grid size and refinement, and injection well type. Less significant factors include hydrodynamic effects.

The economics are assessed using an internally developed technoeconomic model. The model optimizes the CO2 injection cost on the basis of geoengineering data and recent equipment costs. The overall costs depend on the initial costs of CO2 separation and source-to-sink distances and their associated pipeline costs. Secondary cost variations are highly dependent on fracture gradient, permeability, and CO2 injection rates. Depending on the injection characteristics, the specific cost of CO2 avoided is between AUS 62 and 80 per tonne.

Introduction

Australia’s fossil-fuel fired power plants emit 194 million tonnes of CO2 each year (Mt CO2/yr), and approximately 26 Mt/yr of this comes from southeast Queensland. A multidisciplinary study has recently identified the onshore Bowen basin as having potential for geological storage of CO2 (Sayers et al. 2006a). In that paper, geological containment and injectivity and reservoir engineering simulation sensitivities showed that a target injection rate of 1.2 Mt CO2/yr over a 25-year project life span could be achieved (i.e., equivalent to injecting the emissions from a 400 MW gas based power station). This study further examines reservoir engineering and economics sensitivities.

© 2009. Society of Petroleum Engineers

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History

  • Original manuscript received: 18 August 2007
  • Meeting paper published: 30 October 2007
  • Revised manuscript received: 1 May 2009
  • Manuscript approved: 21 June 2009
  • Published online: 28 October 2009
  • Version of record: 28 October 2009