Professor Rick Chalaturnyk

University of Alberta

Biography

​Currently a Professor of Geotechnical Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta, Rick is also an NSERC/Energi Simulation Industrial Research Chair in Reservoir Geomechanics. Prior to joining the University in 1997, he co-founded a reservoir surveillance company called PROMORE Engineering and after joining the University, was engaged as Executive VP of Opsens Solutions, a company providing fiber-optic and non-fiber monitoring solutions to the SAGD and CO2 Storage. At the University of Alberta, he has established the Reservoir Geomechanics Research Group, working primarily in the area of subsurface processes related to current and future energy processes. To support this research program, Rick has established four unique, integrated, multidisciplinary university research laboratory environments called GeoInnovation Environments; GeoREF (Geomechanical Reservoir Experimental Facility), GeoCERF (Geotechnical Centrifuge Experimental Research Facility), GeoPRINT (a facility for 3D Printing of Geological Media for Reservoir Geomechanics), and GeoRMT (Geomechanical Reservoir Modelling Technology).  He has been involved in carbon capture and storage research programs since 1999 with the IEA GHG Weyburn-Midale CO2 Storage and Monitoring Research Project and currently serves as a member of the Scientific and Engineering Research Committee (SERC) for the Aquistore project in Saskatchewan, and several other CCS initiatives. He chaired the Canadian Standards Association Technical Committee that developed the standard for the geological storage of CO2.

All sessions by Professor Rick Chalaturnyk

Field-Based Observations for CO2 Geological Storage from 7 Years of Dynamic CO2 Injection at the Aquistore CO2 Storage Site.
05:15 PM

Continuous monitoring of field conditions over 7 years of intermittent cold CO2 injection at the Aquistore storage site has provided substantial learnings related to the subsurface storage reservoir responses under dynamic injection conditions. suggests a general increase in well injectivity performance with time. The Aquistore CO2 Storage Project is an integral component of SaskPower’s Boundary Dam CO2 Capture Project and is located in southeastern Saskatchewan, Canada. The Boundary Dam Project is one of the world’s first commercial post-combustion carbon capture, utilization, and storage projects where CO2 is captured at SaskPower’s Boundary Dam coal-fired power plant and is primarily used for CO2-EOR operations in the Weyburn Field. Operational synergies between the capture facility (supply) and CO2-EOR (demand) also require excess CO2 to be transported via pipeline to the Aquistore site where it is injected into a hyper-saline fluid filled sandstone formation at approximately 3300 m depth. The injection interval consists of the Deadwood and Winnipeg Formations, which lie unconformably on Precambrian basement rocks, and is overlain by the Icebox Member of the Winnipeg Formation and the Prairie Evaporite. The reservoir temperature is 116 °C, and average reservoir pressure is 35 MPa. Preliminary laboratory measurements on core plugs gave average values of porosity and permeability, 6% and 5 mD respectively. This presentation will highlight observations of hydromechanical (pore pressure) and thermomechanical (pore temperature) processes are involved in the CO2 injection. The presentation will also review data collected from DTS/DAS systems and downhole tubing and casing conveyed pressure sensors over this 7-year period and highlight several learnings observed in the data. An update on issues related to salt precipitation that was initially observed during a downhole camera deployment in May 2017 will be discussed in relation to a follow-up downhole camera run in August 2020.

Professor Rick Chalaturnyk

University of Alberta

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