Sensitivity study of CO2 storage capacity in brine aquifers withclosed boundaries: Dependence on hydrogeologic properties

In large-scale geologic storage projects, the injected volumes of CO{sub 2} will displace huge volumes of native brine. If the designated storage formation is a closed system, e.g., a geologic unit that is compartmentalized by (almost) impermeable sealing units and/or sealing faults, the native brine cannot (easily) escape from the target reservoir. Thus the amount of supercritical CO{sub 2} that can be stored in such a system depends ultimately on how much pore space can be made available for the added fluid owing to the compressibility of the pore structure and the fluids. To evaluate storage capacity in such closed systems, we have conducted a modeling study simulating CO{sub 2} injection into idealized deep saline aquifers that have no (or limited) interaction with overlying, underlying, and/or adjacent units. Our focus is to evaluate the storage capacity of closed systems as a function of various reservoir parameters, hydraulic properties, compressibilities, depth, boundaries, etc. Accounting for multi-phase flow effects including dissolution of CO{sub 2} in numerical simulations, the goal is to develop simple analytical expressions that provide estimates for storage capacity and pressure buildup in such closed systems