CO2-ECBM/Storage Activities at the San Juan Basin's Pump Canyon Test Site

Abstract

Abstract The Southwest Regional Partnership on Carbon Sequestration (SWP) is one of seven regional partnerships sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that collectively includes more than 350 organizations spanning 40 states, three Indian nations, and four Canadian provinces. The objectives are to determine the most suitable technologies, regulations and infrastructure requirements for carbon capture, storage and sequestration in different areas of the country. In Phase I of the partnership program, significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions were inventoried, potential geological sequestration sinks identified, and small-scale sequestration demonstration opportunities developed. Many of these small-scale pilot demonstrations are currently being implemented as part of the Phase II program. One of the three geo-sequestration pilots for the SWP involves CO2 injection into a deep, unmineable coalbed at the Pump Canyon site located in the San Juan Basin of northern New Mexico. At the demonstration site, a new CO2 injection well was drilled into the late-Cretaceous Fruitland coals within an existing pattern of coalbed methane production wells. CO2 is currently being injected into the coal at pressures not to exceed the permitted injection pressure, and a variety of monitoring, verification and accounting (MVA) methods are employed to track the movement of the CO2. Some of the MVA methods include continuous measurement of injection volumes, pressures and temperatures within the injection well, coalbed methane production rates, pressures and compositions at the offset producer wells, tracers in the injected CO2, time-lapse vertical seismic profiling, surface tiltmeter arrays, a series of shallow monitoring wells with a regular fluid sampling program, and surface measurements of soil compositions, CO2 fluxes, tracers, etc. In addition, a detailed geologic characterization and reservoir modeling has been implemented in order to reproduce and understand the behavior of the reservoir. To date, the injection is still on-going and no CO2 breakthrough has occurred. This paper provides a description of the Pump Canyon CO2-ECBM (enhanced coalbed methane) and sequestration demonstration field activities with particular emphasis on the lessons being learned.