Abstract
In order to take far-field translational tilts into account during studying reservoir flow process of CO2 injection, a group of tiltmeters were installed as array covering estimate range of ground spreading from the injection well. The measurements were applicable to ground deformations during a fracturing stimulation treatment, a short-term test of CO2 injection into relatively shallow coal seams and a CO2 injection into deep saline aquifer. An attempt to quantitatively model the rational association between reservoir volumetric disturbance underground and its induced corresponding rather slight distortion on surface was presented. It is as well demonstrated how to sufficiently manipulate vertical unstructured and horizontal divergent model numerical discretization, which eventually makes it feasible to study mechanism between reservoir flow and reservoir Geomechanics by full-field reservoir model. The potential algorithms to improve the computational efficiency and an actual demand for an ambitious solver to inverse coupling problem are finally discussed. The study proposed the development of high-efficiency software package fully capable of dealing with reservoir flow and reservoir Geomechanics so as to implement the history match study not only on a reservoir itself being injected but also including the full field deformation performance up to the costly ground displacement monitoring data.
Highlights
Just like pulse diagnosis that was ever popular in ancient Oriental medicine, tiltmeters as geophysical measure nowadays detect slight tilt signals reflecting rotating displacement differences at several locations covering a portion of boundary, such as ground or borehole opening, where an offset is distant away from down-hole near-field events of an operating reservoir
A new efficient gridding approach has already been developed in order to flexibly focus on reservoir pressure alteration area so as to capture ground surface heave with better speed and precision
This technique was well applied and rigorously verified to analyze ground surface deformation induced by carbon dioxide spreading in the deep saline aquifer during a long injection process
Summary
Just like pulse diagnosis that was ever popular in ancient Oriental medicine, tiltmeters as geophysical measure nowadays detect slight tilt signals reflecting rotating displacement differences at several locations covering a portion of boundary, such as ground or borehole opening, where an offset is distant away from down-hole near-field events of an operating reservoir. Gondle and Siriwardane (2014) installed thirty-six high precision tiltmeters at the field site to monitor ground deformations caused by CO2 injection, it found that the maximum surface uplift recorded was about 3.3 mm (0.13 inches). It has gradually turned into a prominent challenge whether the remote displacement monitoring is effective or not to manage reservoir, i.e., effectively in a quantitative way, how to effectively link the far-field deformation patterns with the straining process at depth. At least the latter is fully coupled by complex reservoir dynamics during flow injection
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