Sensitivity of injection costs to input petrophysical parameters in numerical geologic carbon sequestration models

• Petrophysical parameters impact predicted costs of geologic carbon sequestration.
• Intrinsic permeability and the van Genuchten m parameter were most influential.
• Accurate measurements of these parameters for reservoir conditions are essential.

Numerical simulations are widely used in feasibility studies for geologic carbon sequestration. Accurate estimates of petrophysical parameters are needed as inputs for these simulations. However, relatively few experimental values are available for CO2–brine systems. Hence, a sensitivity analysis was performed using the STOMP numerical code for supercritical CO2 injected into a model confined deep saline aquifer. The intrinsic permeability, porosity, pore compressibility, and capillary pressure-saturation/relative permeability parameters (residual liquid saturation, residual gas saturation, and van Genuchten α and m values) were varied independently. Their influence on CO2 injection rates and costs were determined and the parameters were ranked based on normalized coefficients of variation. The simulations resulted in differences of up to tens of millions of dollars over the life of the project (i.e., the time taken to inject 10.8 million metric tons of CO2). The two most influential parameters were the intrinsic permeability and the van Genuchten m value. Two other parameters, the residual gas saturation and the residual liquid saturation, ranked above the porosity. These results highlight the need for accurate estimates of capillary pressure-saturation/relative permeability parameters for geologic carbon sequestration simulations in addition to measurements of porosity and intrinsic permeability.