GEG Group
CPG
TANGO
ETH Zurich

Simulating Reinjection of Produced Fluids Into the Reservoir

2016PresentationProc. of the Stanford Geothermal workshop Stanford, CA, February 2016

Abstract

In order to maintain reservoir pressure and stability and to reduce reservoir s ubsidence, reinjection of produced fluids into the reservoir is common practice . Furthermore, studies by Karvounis and Jenny (2012 ; 2014), Buscheck et al. (2015), and Saar et al. (2015) found that preheating the working fluid in shallow reservoirs and then injecting the fluid into a deep reservoir can increase the reservoir life span, the heat extraction efficiency, and the economic gains of a geothermal power plant . We have modif ied the TOUGH2 simulator to enable the reinjection of produced fluids with the same chemical composition as the produced fluid and with either a prescribed or the production temperature . T he latter capability is useful, for example, for simulating injecti on of produced fluid into another (e .g., deeper) reservoir without energy extraction. Each component of the fluid mixture , produced from the production well , is reinjected into the reservoir as an individual source term. In the current study, we investigate a CO 2 - based geothermal system and focus on the effects of reinjecting small amounts of brine that are produced along with the CO 2 . Brine has a significantly smaller mobility (inverse kinematic viscosity) than supercritical CO 2 at a given temperature and thus accumulates near the injection well. Such brine accumulation reduces the relative permeability for the CO 2 phase, which in turn increases the pore - fluid pressure around the injection well and reduces the well in j ectivity index. For this reason, and as injection of two fluid phases is pr oblematic, we recommend removal of any brine from the produced fluid before the cooled CO 2 is reinjected into the reservoir. We also study the performance of a multi - level geothermal system (Karvounis and Jenny, 2012; 2014; Saar et al., 2015) by injection of preheated brine from a shallow reservoir (1.5 - 3 km) into a deep reservoir (5 km). We f i nd that preheating brine at the shallow reservoir extends the lifespan of the deep, hot reservoir, thereby increasing the total power production.