Over the coming years, the Danish North Sea may become home for several geological CO2 storage sites. Although it is not expected that the storage reservoirs will leak, it is important to understand the fluid composition of a potential leak before injection is initiated.
Hence, the Velux foundation has granted DTU Offshore funding for the LoCo2 project, which will develop a tool that can model the composition of a potential CO2 leak and its impact on the marine sediment ecosystems. The project will demonstrate the use of the developed software tool on two specific case studies from the Danish North Sea.
The storage site monitoring program must be designed to detect the right leakage components and at the same time, it must be understood what the impact of a potential leak on seabed ecosystem will be.
The LoCo2 software solution will consider all the steps from the CO2 being injected into the well until a potential leak through geological formations reaches the seabed. This includes:
- The impurities injected into the reservoir together with the CO2. The composition of these impurities will depend on the CO2 source and the capture methods.
- The chemical/biological reactions which CO2 will be part of in the reservoir. If the CO2 is stored in a depleted oil and gas reservoir this could be e.g. hydrocarbons, H2S, or injected chemicals.
- The chemical/biological reactions that the CO2 will be part of on the way through the leak path. This could be reactions with geological formations, well barrier material etc.
Having established the potential leak paths and the fluid composition of a leak, the project will investigate how the resulting fluid will impact the microbial ecosystem at the seabed.
