CO2 sequestration monitoring and verification technologies applied at Krechba, Algeria

Abstract

The CO2 sequestration monitoring and verification technologies applied at Krechba, Algeria has been reported. CO2 is being injected into the aquifer leg of the gas producing Krechba Field in central Algeria for longterm storage as a greenhouse-gas reduction initiative as part of the overall In Salah Gas (ISG) development project. The CO2 is injected into the aquifer leg of a 20-m thick, fractured Carboniferous sandstone reservoir from which the Krechba Field produces CO2-rich gas. A preinjection risk register was prepared as part of the initial assessment of the injection site, which was used to design the original monitoring program. The suite of technologies to be deployed at any CO2 storage site for monitoring and verification purposes is readily available and uses mainly standard oil field techniques and practices.

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Editorial
Petroleum exploration and production research in Australia
☆
1. The development history of the oil and gas industry
in Australia
The first drilling for oil in Australia was carried out in
the Coorong area of South Australia in 1892 and the first
offshore drilling was done in Albany harbour in Western
Australia in 1907. However, petroleum was first
discovered in Australia in Lake Bunga in the Gippsland
Basin in 1924. In November 1953, West Australian
Petroleum Pty Ltd (WAPET), a joint venture between
Ampol and Caltex, discovered a small heavy oil field in
Rough Range in Western Australia. These discoveries
and a 1957 Government subsidy scheme were suffi-
ciently encouraging for companies to explore further for
oil and gas (Department of Primary Industries). Aus-
tralia's first commercial oil field, the Moonie field in
southern Queensland was discovered in 1961. Discov-
eries of gas in the Cooper/Eromanga Basin followed in
1964 (APPEA Issues paper, 2006).
Most of the early upstream petroleum activity in
Australia focussed on field mapping, seismic acquisition
and drilling in the onshore areas of Australia: the
Cooper/Eromanga and Surat Basins of South Australia
and Queensland, and the Canning and Perth Basins in
Western Australia, Fig. 1.
In the late 1950's and early 1960's, the global tech-
nology advances in exploration and production in offshore
environments led to the discovery of the offshore Gipps-
land Basin (the Barracouta gas field in 1965, with oil
being discovered the following year) and the Carnarvon
Basin of the North West Shelf (the North Rankin and
Goodwyn gas fields in 1971). Australia's first offshore
oil production began from the Gippsland Basin in 1970
and it remained Australia's most productive oil and gas
basin for the next two and a half decades. Oil production
in the Gippsland Basin reached its peak in 1985 and has
been in steady decline since then, while gas production
on the other hand, has only recently reached a peak due
to limited infrastructure connection to gas markets. The
Carnarvon Basin has now become Australia's most
important petroleum province. It contains giant gas and
gas/condensate fields, underpinning the North West
Shelf Gas Project (domestic gas and LNG exports) as
well as offering a number of future potential LNG
project developments (Greater Gorgon, Pluto and
Scarborough projects). The Bonaparte Basin has also
delivered significant production.
Historically, the bulk of eastern Australia's gas has
been produced from the offshore Bass Strait fields and the
onshore Cooper/Eromanga fields. Moreover the Cooper/
Eromanga Basin has been the main onshore oil and gas
producing area in Australia for three decades. A number
of significant gas production regions exist onshore, in the
Amadeus, Surat and Bowen Basins.
New offshore gas provinces have recently been deve-
loped in the Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA),
Otway and Bass Basins.
2. The role of oil and gas in the Australian economy
Australia's upstream oil and gas industry plays a major
role in meeting energy demands both domestically and
overseas. Petroleum accounts for about 54% of Austra-
lia's primary energy consumption and 72% offinal energy
consumption, with natural gas being exported to a grow-
ing list of Asian countries. In 2005, production by Aus-
tralia's upstream petroleum industry was valued in excess
of $24 billion and contributed an estimated $7.6 billion in
government payments (APPEA Issues paper, 2006). Aus-
tralia exports crude oil, condensate and LNG as well as
refined petroleum products. In 2005, Australia's petro-
leum exports totalled $12.6 billion, including $3.7 billion
from the export of LNG. This figure could rise to
$8.5 billion (nominal) by 2011 with the addition of supply
Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 57 (2007) 1 –7
www.elsevier.com/locate/petrol
☆
This special issue of the Journal of Petroleum Science and
Engineering is devoted to the petroleum exploration and production
research in Australia.
0920-4105/$ - see front matter © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.petrol.2006.10.001

from the North West Shelf and the proposed Greater
Gorgon LNG project (Wood Mackenzie).
Australia also imports crude oil, condensate and
petroleum products. In year 2005, Australia's imports
exceeded its exports by $4.7 billion.
The Australian upstream petroleum industry directly
employs over 15,000 people and represents 2.1% of
Australia's gross domestic product. It also makes an
enormous contribution to state and regional economies
and underpins much of Australia's economic activity.
3. Main operators
Investment in the Australian oil industry market is
open for national and international companies. Major
petroleum production companies in Australia include
Woodside Energy Limited, ExxonMobil/Esso Australia,
Santos Incorporated, BHP Billiton, Apache Corpora-
tion, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and ENI.
4. Production and consumption
Annual crude oil and condensate production in Aus-
tralia reached a peak in 2000 when approximately
265 million barrels were produced, while the current
level of production is in the order of 190 million barrels
per annum (Fig. 2). Additional production is expected
with the development of new oil fields in the offshore
Perth Basin and the southern Carnarvon Basin.
Gas production has risen steadily and further sustained
growth is expected, driven by expansion of LNG exports
and continued growth in domestic gas use, Fig. 3.
Australia's commercial reserves are currently esti-
mated at 2.0 billion barrels of oil and condensate, and
Fig. 1. Australian sedimentary basins (APPEA Issues paper, 2006).
2Editorial

49.5 trillion cubic feet of gas (Wood Mackenzie). At
current rates of consumption this equates to nine years
of liquids reserves to production and 38 years for gas
reserves to production. Australia has substantial techni-
cal reserves (discoveries unlikely to be developed in the
next 5 years) of gas. If these are included Australia has
17 years for liquids and 117 years for gas, Fig. 4.
Australia's outlook for oil and condensate production
is relatively flat. Fig. 5 illustrates oil production under a
number of scenarios. For comparison the demand fore-
cast for petroleum products is also included. Wood
Mackenzie's production profile (the green area) con-
siders the forecast for existing fields, as well as new fields
likely to be developed within the next five years; no
consideration is given to exploration success. ABARE
(Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Eco-
nomics) forecasts include an estimate of future explora-
tion success. With the forecast growth in domestic
demand for petroleum liquids, Australia's dependence
on imports to fill the gap will increase substantially.
5. Challenges
Currently it costs around A$45 million to drill an
exploration well in deep water and in order to attract
Australian and international industry to explore in
Fig. 3. Australian annual gas production (bcf) (APPEA Issues paper, 2006).
Fig. 2. Australian annual liquid petroleum production (mmbbl) (APPEA Issues paper, 2006).
Fig. 4. Australian remaining petroleum reserves at 1st January 2006 (Wood Mackenzie).
3Editorial

frontier Australian areas, the technology must advance
to increase prospectivity and drilling success rates,
particularly in ultra deep waters. The economical
viability of the development of Australia's stranded
giant gas reserves requires leading edge technology to
lower the cost of the development, processing and
transport of this stranded gas to market. Challenges also
include the development of long term commercial
relationships that are needed to open LNG markets.
Due to the reduction in number and size of new
discoveries, technologies that aim to maximize recov-
ery from currently producing reservoirs can help reduce
the gap between production and demand. Technologies
aimed at CO
2
emissions reduction and the use of geo-
logical sequestration and increased energy efficiency
are becoming more important for controlling green
house gas effects. There are also incentives to consider
alternative sources of energy such as hydrogen, thermal
and perhaps nuclear energy.
6. Opportunities
Australia's gas production is at the edge of a very
significant expansion driven by the increased domestic
consumption and the LNG demands of the Asian mar-
kets. Despite the liquid production plateau predicted
by ABARE (Fig. 5), a bright future awaits the oil
industry in Australia. Many of Australia's 48 sedi-
mentary basins remain under-explored. The possibility
exists that more of these basins could generate
significant liquid production in the future. Moreover,
Australia's gas resources production is expected to be
followed by natural gas liquids (NGL) production.
This is expected to maintain the current plateau in
liquid oil production.
Australia has the opportunity to build a leading
position in the development and deployment of future
technology for the offshore gas and oil industry. High
oil prices provide the right environment for such in-
vestment. Major Australian petroleum companies with
expertise in international operations are increasingly
taking the lead in the development of technically chal-
lenging projects in Australia. Their expertise and the
challenges they face are guiding the research and
technology development in Australia. Their interna-
tional operations will facilitate the export of new
technology around the world. The Commonwealth and
State Governments in Australia are both committed to
the support of research efforts in fossil fuels. The
National Research Flagships managed by CSIRO and
the WA Energy Research Alliance (WA: ERA) are two
examples.
7. Research and training
The Australian government invests in research and
training through the following institutions and initiatives
which are partly funded by the industry.
1. Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Orga-
nisation (CSIRO).
2. University Departments of Petroleum Engineering and
Geosciences (including: Curtin University of Tech-
nology, The University of Western Australia (UWA),
Adelaide University, The University of New South
Wales (UNSW)).
3. Western Australian Energy Research Alliance (WA:
ERA) and its strategic alliances with the Western Aus-
tralian Government, Woodside Energy and Chevron.
4. Co-operative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas
Technologies (CO
2
CRC) focussed on carbon dioxide
capture and geological storage (sequestration).
8. Articles in this special issue
This special issue of JPSE consists of invited papers in
seven areas. The wide spectrum of the topics dealt with
reflects the wide range of research activities in Australia.
Fig. 5. Australia oil/condensate production and demand forecast (`000bbl/day). Shaded area is Wood Mackenzie prediction (APPEA Issues paper,
2006).
4Editorial

In the offshore structures area, Ronalds et al. inves-
tigate the structural reliability of braced and unbraced
monopod platforms under storm overload. Particular
features of monopod platforms result in the probabil-
ities of failure frequently being higher than recom-
mended values for new unmanned platforms, although
the values vary strongly with topside weight. Increasing
the environmental load factor significantly from γ
E
=
1.35 to γ
E
= 3 is found to achieve commonly acceptable
safety index values βN3 with much greater uniformity
in reliability.
Seven papers are presented under the category of
reservoir definition and performance. The paper by Dodds
et al. describes a range of geophysical research activities at
the Australian Resources Research Centre based around
the development of an experimental capability to validate
theoretical and numerical modelling predictions of
geophysical fluid properties of reservoirs and seals. The
results from these combined research activities have
improved the understanding of the effects of effective
stress, anisotropy and saturation on the interpretation of
geophysical data, which has implications for pore
pressure prediction, 4D seismic evaluations, depth
conversion and pressure-saturation discrimination.
The paper by Evans et al. demonstrates the internal
heterogeneity in ancient fluvial and deltaic systems and
the potential difficulties for correlation and prediction of
sandbody geometry in the subsurface.
The paper by Goda et al. reports on the use of Artificial
Neural Networks and a semi-empirical equation that is
calibrated using a genetic algorithm to determine irreduc-
ible water saturation. They find the performance of these
models to be superior to other conventional models.
The paper by Rahman discusses two cases of unsuc-
cessful hydraulic fracturing to enhance production from
complex oil and gas reservoirs onshore Australia. A
number of potentially effective hydraulic fracture treat-
ments are recommended for those reservoirs.
The paper by Sherlock et al. describes a research
program to establish and use an analog model of a
turbidite channel reservoir to gain insight into issues of
uncertainty in reservoir simulations of channelised fields
and their seismic expression. The research is unique in
that it integrates seismic and reservoir engineering re-
search in a controlled laboratory environment and is
based around a cementation technique that allows syn-
thetic sandstones to be fabricated with pre-determined
physical properties such as porosity, permeability and
impedance.
The paper by Underschultz et al. addresses a problem
of importance to Australian mature fields. It demonstrates
the inadequacies, at the sub-basin scale, in the standard
reservoir engineering approach for characterizing region-
al aquifer depletion in response to long term production.
It recommends the use of hydrodynamic characterization
to avoid assumptions leading to these uncertainties.
Flett et al. present a paper that investigates the dis-
posal of CO
2
in heterogeneous saline formations: a suite
of simulation models, with varying net to gross ratios of
shale to sand, was constructed. The study shows that
heterogeneous saline aquifers are effective in containing
the CO
2
plume within the formation and that heteroge-
neity serves to limit the reliance on the formation seal as
the only mechanism for containment.
In the exploration category, we present two papers.
The paper by George et al. uses Australian case his-
tories to illustrate the main applications of fluid inclu-
sion analyses. Some of these applications are better
constraining oil charge histories of reservoirs and iden-
tifying active source rocks previously unknown in a
particular basin. The effects of oil-alteration by biode-
gradation and/or water washing in the reservoir can be
removed, mixing episodes in reservoirs can be decon-
voluted, and the effects of drilling mud additives or
other contaminants can be eliminated.
In the paper by Keyu et al. two fluorescence tech-
niques, namely Quantitative Grain Fluorescence (QGF)
and QGF on Extract (QGF-E), were employed to inves-
tigate hydrocarbon charge history in 17 wells from
seven sedimentary basins in Australia and Papua New
Guinea: the Exmouth, Barrow, Vulcan, Timor Sea (joint
petroleum development area), Cooper, Gippsland, and
Papuan (sub-) Basins. The QGF and QGF-E methods,
which provide information on both current and palaeo
oil saturation, have been shown to be very effective in
unravelling hydrocarbon charge history in the wells
investigated.
In the category of improved oil recovery, Dholkawala
et al. investigate mechanisms of foam displacement in
porous media using the fractional flow theory. The study
shows that the theory explains many features of con-
ventional foam-generation experiments successfully.
In the category of hydrocarbon processing, Behren-
bruch and Dedigma propose a new method of charac-
terizing crude oils based on the shape of TBP distillation
curves. A gamma distribution is used to characterize the
TBP distillation curve, and the parameters of the fitted
distribution are used as characterization parameters. The
proposed method is found to describe experimental data
very well with just two parameters, and as such offers a
very practical approach in terms of classifying crude
oils.
In the knowledge management and decision making
category, Malhotra et al. suggest an improvement to the
5Editorial

quality of decisions made in the oil industry by adding
three criteria to the definition of an expert; these are
discrimination, consistency and domain knowledge.
Alharthy et al. use a concept new to the oil industry to
model dependency between variables in the decision
making process: the copula, which is a statistical con-
cept that relates random variables better than other
models, particularly at their marginal distributions. They
show the new model to have superior results.
The final paper in this special issue is by Freij-Ayoub
et al. and is in the drilling and well engineering category.
The paper describes a model developed to simulate the
stability of a wellbore drilled in a methane-hydrate
bearing sedimentary formation. It investigates the effect
of hydrate dissociation on the size of the yield zone
around a wellbore heated by a hot drilling fluid. For the
model parameters used and within the assumptions
stated, it is found that drilling in hydrate bearing sedi-
ments with a drilling fluid 5° hotter than the formation
increases the yield zone by 32% if the formation is
permeable and fluid flow is allowed.
Acknowledgments
We would like to express our sincere thanks to the
reviewers of papers in this issue who are the leading world
experts in their field and who, despite their heavy
schedules, enthusiastically participated in the review
process. Their suggestions and criticisms greatly enhanced
the quality of this issue. They include: Dr. Farouk Akgun
(Petroleum Institute, AE), Prof. Guy Allinson (University
of New South Wales, NSW, Australia), Dr. Graham
Beacher (Chevron, Australia), Dr. Sally Benson (Lawr-
ence Berkeley Labs, USA), Prof. Martin Blunt (Imperial
College), Dr. Dennis Brown (Mackenzie Energy, USA),
Dr. Paul Bryan (Chevron, Australia), Dr. Fiona Burns
(Curtin University, WA. Australia), Dr. Greg Carlsen
(DOIR, Australia), Prof. Chris Chapman (Schlumberger,
Cambridge, UK), Dr. Ben Clennell (CSIRO Petroleum,
Australia), Wayne Cox (EnCana, Canada), Dr. Carlos
Damski (CSIRO Petroleum, Australia), Dr. Christine
Doughty (Lawrence Berkeley Labs, USA), Prof. Arcady
Dyskin (University of Western Australia, Australia), Dr.
Dan Ebrom (BPAmerica, Inc., Houston, USA), Dr. Turgay
Ertekin (Pennsylvania State University, Pens, USA), Prof.
Abbas Firoozabadi (Yale University, Connecticut, USA),
Dr. Kilti Grice (Curtin University, WA, Australia), Prof.
Mamun Halabi (Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research,
Kuwait), Dr. Don Hall (Fluid Inclusion Technology,
Oklahoma, USA), Dr. Baolei Han (CSIRO Petroleum,
Australia), Roger Hocking (DOIR, Australia), Jerry Jensen
(Texas A and M University, Texas, USA), Dr. Kenneth
Kibodeaux (Shell EP Research and Development, Shell),
Eugene Kim (Wood Mackenzie Ltd, USA), Dr. Robert
Kleinberg (Schlumberger-Doll Research), Mr Klaas
Koster (Shell), Mr Jean-Paul Lange (Shell), Mr Mark
MacFarlane (Santos, Adelaide), Mr Kim Manzano-Kareah
(Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, New
Zealand), Prof. Mark Cassidy (University of Western
Australia, WA, Australia), Dr. Kazuo Miura (PETRO-
BRAS, Brazil), Prof. Norm Morrow (University Of
Wyoming, Wyoming, USA), Dr. James Murtha (Schlum-
bergerglobal, Houston, USA), Dr. Edson Nakagawa
(CSIRO Petroleum, Australia), Dr. Claus Otto (CSIRO
Petroleum, Australia), Dr Ingo Pecher (Institute of
Geological and Nuclear Sciences, New Zealand), Prof.
Earl Piermattei (University of Western Australia, WA,
Australia), Prof. Val Pinczewski (UNSW Australia), Dr.
Alastair Ruffell (The Queen's University of Belfast, IR),
Dr. Erik Simmelink (TNO—Built Environment and
Geosciences, Holland), Mr Gerhard Thonhauser (Drilling
Engineering, Mining University Leoben, Austria), Mr
John Toldi (Chevron, California, USA), Dr. Ben Vanaars-
sen (Curtin University, WA, Australia), Mr Mike Walker
(Walker Petrophysics Pty Ltd, Australia), Dr. Fred Rolf
Wassmuth (Alberta Research Council, Canada).
We also would like to thank Ms. Tirza van Daalen
and Ms. Tonny Smit of the Elsevier Earth Sciences
Editorial Office in the Netherlands for the opportunity to
publish this special issue.
Special thanks go to Mr. Dudley Parkinson from
Woodside Energy Limited and Dr Edson Nakagawa
from CSIRO for their contribution to the editorial.
Finally, we would like to thank the authors who
responded to the call of papers and made this special
issue possible.
References
Department of Primary Industries, Victoria, Australia: http://www.dpi.
vic.gov.au/dpi/.
APPEA Issues paper. “Australia's upstream oil and gas industry: a
platform for prosperity”. May 2006.
Wood Mackenzie. http://www.woodmacresearch.com.
Reem Freij-Ayoub*
Cedric Griffiths
Beverley Ronalds
a
CSIRO Petroleum, Australian Resources Research
Centre PO Box 1130 Bentley, WA-6102 Australia
E-mai l addre sses: Reem.Fre ij-Ayoub@csi ro.au
(R. Freij-Ayoub),
Cedric.Griffiths@Csiro.Au (C. Griffiths),
Beverley.Ronalds@Csiro.Au (B. Ronalds).
⁎Corresponding author.
6Editorial

Geoff Weir
Raj Rajeswaran
b
Department of Petroleum Engineering,
Curtin University of Technology,
GPO Box U1987 Perth WA 6845-Australia
E- mail addresses: Geoffw@peteng.curt in.net.au
(G. Weir), R.Rajeswaran@curtin.edu.au
(R. Rajeswaran).
G.A. Mansoori
c
Thermodynamics Research Laboratory,
University of Illinois at Chicago,
Chicago, IL 60607-7000, USA
E-mai l address: mansoori@u ic.edu .
9 October 2006
7Editorial