Cosmic Ray Muon Tomography; A New Method for Monitoring Sweep in Oilfield Waterfloods?

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1 Cosmic Ray Muon Tomography; A New Method for Monitoring Sweep in Oilfield Waterfloods? Jon Gluyas 1, Vitaly Kudryavtsev 2, Lee Thompson 2, Dave Allan 1, Chris Benton 3, Paula Chadwick 1, Sam Clark 1, Max Coleman 4, Joel Klinger 2, Cathryn Mitchell 3, Sam Nolan 1, Sumanta Pal 2, Sean Paling 5, Neil Spooner 2, Sam Telfer 2, David Woodward 2 1 Department of Earth Sciences, Centre, Durham University, 2 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, 3 JEngineering School, University of Bath, 4 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA 5 Science & Technology Facilities Council, Rutherford Appleton Lab, Didcot PESGB DEVEX, Aberdeen, May 2015

2 UK Policy on Carbon Capture credit: One aspect of this is capturing and storing CO 2.

3 Carbon Capture and Storage 1-3 km 100+ km credit:

4 Potential CO 2 storage sites The UK is fortunate and has access to any hundreds of potential CO 2 storage sites including >400 depleted oil and gas fields and 100s large saline aquifers

5 CO 2 storage monitoring Successful capture and storage isn t the end of the problem EU legislation is likely to require less than 1% leakage per 1000 years Monitoring will be required Costs of monitoring will need to factored in

6 Monitoring Technologies Marine 4d seismic Electromagnetic surveys (Chadwick et al., 2010) Land 4d seismic Insar CO 2 seep detection (InSAR data from Rutqvist et al., 2010) 6

7 4-D Seismic detection costs Assumes 1M per shot (some estimates as high as 5M) Costs for 1 storage site up to 150 may be developed No inflation Every 100 years 200 to 1000 years Every 5 years 25 to 100 years Every 10 years 100 to 200 years Every year to 25 years Injection No injection

8 CCS monitoring 4d seismic surveys are not the optimal tool for CCS monitoring, in particular they are episodic what happens between surveys do not measure CO 2 density directly (measures acoustic contrast, f) An ideal monitoring methodology would be inexpensive continuous passive directly sensitive to CO 2 density last for hundreds of years Are there alternative technologies that can address some of these issues??

9 Cosmic Rays & Muons Primary Cosmic Ray (up to Joules!) Primary cosmic rays interact in the atmosphere and decay into showers of secondary cosmic rays On Earth we are constantly bathed in (secondary) fundamental particles from cosmic rays A few of these particles pass through us every minute Health concerns over exposure to primary cosmic rays Secondary Cosmic Rays

10 Muon Tomography Track Record Examples of previous work in the field: imaging magma chambers Image of Mount Asama, Japan (Tanaka et al)

11 The Reservoir Interval 1km Initial Grains 65% Pore water 35% CO 2 flooded Grains 65% Pore water 25% CO 2 10% Muon detector Muon detector 11 15/06/2015 Can we detect muons? Can we detect change in muon flux?

12 Muon Flux Simulations Initial studies (2010) indicates that by instrumenting 1000 m 2 and taking data for 1 year then 0.4% mean volume density variations (7% pore volume) can be measured at 1km depth Monitoring subsurface CO2 emplacement and security of storage using muon tomography V.A. Kudryavtsev et al., International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 11 (2012) 21 24

13 Muon Tomography for CCS Monitoring Muon tomography offers a monitoring tool that is: Continuous some methods are episodic, what happens between measurements? Passive Directly sensitive to CO 2 density some methods do not measure CO 2 density directly Capable of delivering useful data for many years cost effective but there are challenges Need to instrument below/around the volume of interest Restricted borehole geometry not well-suited Elevated temperatures

14 CCS consortium Awarded a ~ 1.5M grant from DECC and Premier Oil Other funding from STFC

15 Geological Modelling Hewett field a candidate CO 2 storage site

16 Towards a Borehole Detector Detecting elementary particles such as muons requires detectors These detectors rely on the muons interacting with some medium and leaving a trace behind Charge Light Avoid gaseous and liquid detectors for longevity reasons Use solid plastic scintillator Main challenge is the geometry position along the bar requires accurate (sub nanosecond) timing

17 Borehole Detector Prototype

18 Muon Experiments at Boulby The Boulby Science Lab is situated ~1.5km underground and is proving an invaluable testing ground The mine also has (now disused) tunnels running out under the North Sea

19 Borehole Detector Installation at Boulby Over the summer 2014 a borehole was drilled into a rock side wall at the Boulby mine In early October the borehole detector was deployed in that area After a period of commissioning we are now recording muon events successfully at this location

20 Boulby Installation Photos

21 Muon tides Experiment Allows an important proof of principle experiment which will look at changes in overburden Aims to observe the changes in overburden (density) from the North Sea tides at -764m in the Boulby mine Cross coast boundary (~200m cliff drop, m depth sea)

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23 Application to Petroleum Production Douglas Field East Irish Sea Basin Sept 28th

24 7 Douglas Field East Irish Sea Basin

25 Douglas Field East Irish Sea Basin 9 Sweep = 0.64% bulk density increase 0.16% density increase measurable in 8 months

26 Conclusions Muon tomography may prove a useful complementary tool to other technologies for the monitoring of carbon storage and oilfield sweep There are obvious challenges: Designing and operating effective muon detectors in the constrained borehole geometry Elevated temperatures in the borehole will clearly make this a difficult environment to work in Proof of principle work is taking place Plastic scintillator-based borehole detector Boulby muon tides detectors for overburden measurement Next steps Plans to operate the detector in a geothermal borehole in Newcastle There are other potentially interesting applications of muon tomography