CO₂ Storage Engineering: Real Solution to Real Problems

Deep saline aquifers offer the potential for storing large volumes of CO₂. However, with conventional CO₂ storage well design and operating practices, only a small fraction of this large CO₂ storage potential can be productively used. Numerous alternative designs and practices, which utilize the reservoir’s internal architecture and draw on CO₂ storage engineering expertise, could enable CO₂ storage operators to more efficiently and fully utilize a saline formation’s storage capacity. This would help reduce the areal extent of the CO₂ plume and its risk footprint. It would also help reduce the number of CO₂ injection wells and patterns that would need to be developed.

This paper, entitled "CO₂ Storage Engineering: Real Solution to Real Problems", discusses practical CO₂ storage options that have been proposed for significantly increasing CO₂ storage performance at three challenging saline reservoir settings.