Conformity assessment of monitoring and simulation of CO2 storage: A case study from the Ketzin pilot site

Demonstrating conformity between observed and simulated plume behaviour is one of the main high-level requirements, which have to be fulfilled by an operator of a CO2 storage site in order to assure safe storage operations and to be able to transfer liability to the public after site closure. The observed plume behaviour is derived from geophysical and/or geochemical monitoring. Repeated 3D seismic observations have proven to provide the most comprehensive image of a CO2 plume in various projects such as Sleipner, Weyburn, or Ketzin. The simulated plume behaviour is derived from reservoir simulation using a model calibrated with monitoring results. Plume observations using any monitoring method are always affected by limited resolution and detection ability, and reservoir simulations will only be able to provide an approximated representation of the occurring reservoir processes. Therefore, full conformity between observed and simulated plume behaviour is difficult to achieve, if it is at all. It is therefore of crucial importance for each storage site to understand to what degree conformity can be achieved under realistic conditions, comprising noise affected monitoring data and reservoir models based on geological uncertainties. We applied performance criteria (plume footprint area, lateral migration distance, plume volume, and similarity index) for a comparison between monitoring results (4D seismic measurements) and reservoir simulations, considering a range of seismic amplitude values as noise threshold and a range of minimum thickness of the simulated CO2 plume. Relating the performance criteria to the noise and thickness threshold values allows assessing the quality of conformance between simulated and observed behaviour of a CO2 plume. The Ketzin site is provided with a comprehensive monitoring data set and a history-matched reservoir model. Considering the relatively high noise level, which is inherent for land geophysical monitoring data, a reasonable conformance between the observed and simulated plume behaviour is demonstrated.