Description
The proposed research project aims to develop new technologies for simultaneous CO2 - EOR and CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) in mature or abounded oil reservoirs. The MUSE research allows to get a new knowledge that facilitates large - scale CO2 storage in Poland. Work packages planned in the project will enable the development of co- injection technology of carbon dioxide into oil clusters. Considering the limited CCS implementation in Poland the proposed project will infer a great contribution to growing and development of knowledge. The Authors of the proposal intend to apply literature studies, computer modelling and wide range of chemical and physical methods tailored to the specific tasks. The target audience include national and international scientific communities, communities involved in the active environmental protection and local community. During the project Norwegian partner will provide their skills and knowledge in the implementation of CCS on a large scale. The consortium with the University of Stavanger and its facilities consolidate the team for developing an effective research.
Summary of project results
Most of the current oil production in Poland as well as in Norway comes from mature fields. These fields are exploited mainly by use of primary recovery methods. Typical oil recovery associated with primary pressure depletion is 10 to 20% of the original oil in place. In order to improve recovery factor enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods may be used. As has been shown in the project, the most promising is injection of CO2. This can be combined with carbon capture and storage. However the mature fields in Poland are too small for both methods to achieve acceptable economic efficiency. In order to overcome this limitation it was proposed in the project to consider clusters of reservoirs to enlarge storage capacity and improve efficiency of the recovery. All known oil reservoirs in Poland were reviewed as candidates for EOR and CCS by use of deep geological analyses. It was found that known screening criteria give no satisfactory answer to the problem and for this reason advanced mathematical procedure called “cluster analysis” was used to define groups of similar reservoirs suitable for both EOR and CCS. Available technologies were reviewed to select methods of well reconstruction, plugging and maintenance in order to minimize risk of negative effects on environment. Advanced field and laboratory measurements were performed to investigate the influence of present exploitation of oil in Poland on environment and to obtain data for computer simulation of selected reservoirs. Finally, the professional full scale computer simulation models of 6 selected reservoirs were created, calibrated and verified using all available historical data. Various scenarios of CO2 injection to all selected reservoirs were considered and optimized in order to maximize efficiency of the projects. In the mathematical formulation of the optimization problem both EOR and CCS were taken into account. To solve the defined optimization problem, evolutionary optimization algorithms and intelligent methods of cluster analysis, and mathematical theory of optimal control have been implemented. The sophisticated software has been developed to solve the EOR-CCS co-optimization problem numerically. Optimization model were implemented in Matlab software and contains special subroutines for integration of evolutionary optimization algorithms with professional simulators of reservoirs, Eclipse100 and Eclipse 300.
Summary of bilateral results
The common Polish-Norwegian team of researchers obtained effect of synergy resulting from different skills and experiences. In particular, the Norwegian professors were able to share the experiences in laboratory experiments what accelerated progress in investigations in new cores lab at AGH. In 2017, one professor from Norway worked at AGH as visiting professor for a period of 6 months and this action will be probably continued. It was also agreed that UiS and AGH will prepare the common application for financing of a new project. The mutual seminars were organized periodically (3 times in Poland and 2 times in Norway) to present progress of project and to discuss further work. Technical visits of Norwegian researches in Poland and Polish researches in Norway were also organized.