CO2 Plume Tracking and History Matching Using Multilevel Pressure Monitoring at the Illinois Basin - Decatur Project

The incorporation of multilevel pressure monitoring at the Illinois Basin Decatur Project (IBDP) has provided a unique opportunity to validate methods for tracking buoyant migration of CO2 using multilevel pressure transient data. Additionally, by history matching pressure transient data it is possible to develop a highly resolved hydrogeological model that can be used to forecast future plume migration. At the IBDP, the multilevel pressure transient alone indicate that the CO2 remains largely confined to the depth interval into which it was injected, and there is no indication of buoyancy flow towards the shallower portions of the storage reservoir. By incorporating multilevel pressure monitoring into the monitoring program, additional information is available that can be used to minimize and manage potential risk associated with CO2 and displaced brine migration to shallower depths. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under he CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).