Dag Wessel-Berg

• Doctor of Engineering
• Professor (Associate) at Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Convective mixing of free-phase CO2 and brine in saline aquifers is an established technique to accelerate the CO2 dissolution process. Correct estimation of the convection onset time and rate of CO2 dissolution into brine are two crucial parameters regarding safety issues, as the timescale for dissolution corresponds to the same time over which th...

Deep placement of gel in waterflooded hydrocarbon reservoirs may block channels with high water flow and may divert the water into other parts of the reservoir, resulting in higher oil production. In order to get the gel constituents to the right reservoir depths, a delay in the gelling time in the order of weeks at elevated temperatures will be ne...

Current digital tools applicable for online education are either not tailored for communication between teacher and students or lack the possibility of a mutual eye contact and seamless integration of handwriting and third party applications. The proposed tool "Teach Us" aims to be a robust, relatively simple application dedicated to interactive co...

CO2 dissolution is considered as one of the most promising mechanisms for trapping of free-phase CO2 into brine. It causes an increased density of the brine and initiation of gravitational instability that eventually leads to density-driven natural convection in saline aquifers. Correct estimation of the onset time for convection and the rate of di...

The storage of CO2 in deep formations like saline aquifers is being actively considered in order to support the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. It has been observed that dissolution of CO2 into brine causes an increased density in the mixture and if the corresponding Rayleigh number of the porous medium is high enough to initiate convection...

A technical-economical model for a large-scale infrastructure combining CO2 EOR and aquifer storage has been used to construct a scenario including 23 Norwegian Continental Shelf oil fields that have been identified as potential candidates for CO2 flooding. In the injection scenario, 70 million tonnes of CO2 is injected annually over 40 years. A li...

CO2 dissolution as one of the most promising mechanisms for trapping of CO2 free phase into brine causes increased density of the brine and initiation of gravitational instability that eventually leads to density-driven natural convection in brine aquifers. The gravitational instability of a diffusive boundary layer in porous media has been studied...

CO2 dissolution as one of the most promising mechanisms for trapping of CO2 free phase into brine causes increased density of the brine and initiation of gravitational instability that eventually leads to density-driven natural convection in brine aquifers. Correct estimation of the onset time for convection and the rate of dissolution are importan...

Large scale deployment of CO2 capture and storage (CCS) has the potential to be an important part of the effort to mitigate climate changes. If large scale CCS is to be realised the storage resources of saline aquifers should be utilised to their full potential by maximising the storage performance of each aquifer. This can not be performed without...

CO2 storage without water production is realized by injecting CO2 into the underground without any actions for relieving the pressure buildup generally associated with such an operation. Successfully storing large volumes of CO2 at a given site with no active pressure relief is not guaranteed due to uncertainty of the size and permeability of the h...

The security of storage of CO2 by injection as dense-phase gas in geological formations, includes evaluating the efficiency of the different long-term trapping mechanisms. As part of this, it is often suggested that the amount of dissolved CO2 over long time perspective can be enhanced significantly by the added effect on effective dissolution rate...

Two-dimensional glass model experiments are used to investigate the residual trapping mechanism of CO2 stored in saline aquifers. For this purpose, two proxy fluids are chosen to simulate the CO2-brine behavior under reservoir conditions. The first set of experiments is carried out by flooding n-heptane in a mixture of glycerol and water inside a g...

For simulation models of density-driven natural convection in brine aquifers gravitational instabilities are usually triggered by numerical round off errors. Using this method for initiating onset of convective flow, simulation results show that the onset time for convection is orders of magnitude larger than the ones predicted by theoretical stabi...

In this paper an integrated workflow is described for risk assessment within CCS. IFPEN, SINTEF and TNO joined forces to define a comprehensive and transparent risk assessment methodology. The tools developed in these institutes are thereby integrated. The workflow can be applied to proposed carbon storage sites. Starting with a qualitative analysi...

In order to investigate effects of injection rate and aquifer influx in imbibition processes and also wettability behaviour for CO 2 storage in aquifers, two representative fluids are chosen for relative permeability measurements. These two fluids represent CO 2 and brine at the reservoir conditions. The first set of experiments is done by n-heptan...

Injecting CO2 in subsurface formations bearing brine creates different storage mechanisms. Firstly, CO2 will have an upward movement due to the buoyancy and it will be trapped below a geological barrier. During this stage of flow brine starts to imbibe into the pore spaces already occupied by CO2. Because of the wetting behavior of the system and C...

After injecting CO2 into the formations containing brine, it starts to penetrate to upper sections and will be trapped under a geological barrier, during this period the formation brine will imbibe the CO2 and some portion of it will be trapped in the pore spaces. Capillary forces prevent complete drainage of CO2 and residual saturation remains tra...

In this paper we extend previous work in on the linearized analysis of gravitational instability of a diffusive boundary layer in a semi-infinite anisotropic homogenous porous medium. We express the time derivative of the square of the standard L 2-norm of a given perturbation as a time dependent quadratic form on an appropriate Hilbert space . Num...

After injecting CO2 into subsurface brine for storage, it will be trapped in the reservoir through various mechanisms. In the beginning, the geological trapping mechanism dominates and the CO2 plume is moving upward below a cap rock. Then brine will imbibe the formation and some parts of the CO2 will be trapped in the pore paces. Later on injected...

CO2 sequestration in deep formations is being actively considered for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Saline aquifers are considered as one of the most favorable options for this purpose. It has been observed that dissolution of CO2 into brine causes increased density of the mixture. If the corresponding Rayleigh number of the porous med...

Storage of CO2 into geological formations is a reasonable technical choice for decreasing carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere. The dissolution of supercritical CO2 in formation water is one of the main long term trapping mechanisms for CO2 storage into saline aquifers. Convective mixing is predicted to occur, which accelerates the dissolutio...

The gravitational instability of a diffusive boundary layer in porous media, or diffusion induced convection, has been studied in a number of papers in recent years . This effect is important as it speeds up the dissolution of the CO2 phase into the aquifer brine by setting up convective mixing. An empirical formula for the dissolution rate per are...

To estimate the total CO2 EOR (enhanced oil recovery) potential in the UK and Norwegian sector of the North Sea a techno-economical model for CO2 injection into oil reservoirs and aquifers has been used in a scenario were many of the most feasible prospective water flooded fields are included. The fields are connected to a common CO2 pipeline syste...

The analysis of gravitational instability of a diffusive boundary layer in porous media has been addressed in several papers over the years. In this paper we consider the linear stability problem for an infinite depth aquifer with anisotropic absolute permeability. We derive an explicit expression for the time evolution equations of the generalized...

The analysis of gravitational instability of a diffusive boundary layer in porous media has been addressed in several papers over the years. In this paper we consider the linear stability problem for an infinite depth aquifer with anisotropic absolute permeability. We derive an explicit expression for the time evolution equations of the generalized...

Publisher Summary This chapter illustrates an injection scenario that includes most of the Norwegian oil reservoirs in the North Sea oil reservoir. In order to elucidate the possibility of combining CO2 storage with EOR, a techno-economic model for a large scale scheme for CO2 deposition in Norway's North Sea oil provinces has been developed. A CO2...

Publisher Summary This chapter highlights that the quantitative assessment of leakage risk and leakage rates from planned underground CO2 storage sites is a primary requirement for public acceptance, formal site approval, and credit for stored CO2 quantities under CO2 emission schedules. Leakage through the top seal can basically occur by three pro...

The pressure solution to a class of boundary value problems relevant for 2D Darcy flow in barrier geometries is derived using theta functions and elliptic integrals. From this solution an exact upscaling formula is established giving the effective permeability for flow through a homogenous layer bounded by two infinitely thin barriers with a single...

The position of the oil-water contact (OWC) in a prospect or field is one of the most important factors in determining reserves. In the central North Sea, OWCs in the Cretaceous Chalk Group and in Paleocene sandstones can be naturally tilted by bed-parallel hydrodynamic activity as the Central Graben dewaters. Examples of fields with interpreted ti...

Three boundary value problems for Laplace's equation related to 2D Darcy flow through a gap in barrier are considered. Solutions to two of the problems are obtained, and an exact formula for the effective permeability represented by a gap in an infinitely thin barrier is found. Deriving the effective penneability represented by a gap in a barrier w...

The basic equation for volume, heat and CO2 flux in a porous medium which is subject to both a temperature field and molecular diffusion have been analysed with respect to the stability criteria for convectional vertical flow in a porous medium. This analysis reveals under what condition vertical convection may occur, which is important for the tot...

A techno-economic model for CO 2 injection into oil reservoirs and aquifers has been developed. The model consists of a CO 2 transportation module and an EOR module that are integrated with an economic model which calculates investment costs and running costs for injection into both oil reservoirs and aquifers. By use of the techno-economic model,...