Bell Creek Test Site Development of a Cost-Effective, Long-Term Monitoring Strategy
The PCOR Partnership Bell Creek project, which is conducted in collaboration with the commercial project, provides a substantive opportunity for the validation of viable monitoring, verification, and accounting (MVA) strategies with applicability to both large-scale carbon storage in deep saline formations and associated carbon storage through enhanced oil recovery. In collaboration with Denbury, a 5-year research MVA program was conducted to demonstrate 16 MVA techniques with applications to geologic CO2 storage scenarios. The program represents 1.5 years of preinjection and over 3 years of operational MVA activities coinciding with the first 3.2 million tons of associated CO2 storage. Every carbon storage project presents unique technical, operational, and performance conditions. However, typical monitoring criteria are likely to include demonstration of secure storage; tracking the vertical and lateral migration of fluids and pressure; improving long-term performance forecasts of storage capacity, efficiency, and utilization; informing operational improvements; and understanding of the long-term distribution and containment of injected CO2. The research MVA program was designed to evaluate the adequacy of monitoring techniques for addressing identified technical risks common to nearly all CO2 storage applications. An adaptive management approach was used to integrate components of the MVA program with site characterization, modeling and simulation, and technical risk assessment. This integration provided experience and insights regarding the additional ancillary value that each demonstrated MVA technique provides to a commercial injection project.View/Download Document