TU Geosciences Seminar Presents: 

Formation Evaluation and the Petrophysics of Carbon Storage

Dr. James Howard

Research Associate

Department of Geosciences, The University of Tulsa

james.jennings.howard@gmail.com

Wednesday April 10, 2024 @ 12pm KEP 3005

Talk:

The use of down-hole wireline logging measurements to characterize carbon storage projects has many similarities to the requirements for hydrocarbon-bearing reservoirs. The most important features of any carbon storage project that satisfy operational plus regulatory design include knowledge of storage capacity, injectivity and containment, which is very similar to the major components of a petroleum system that is defined by reservoir volume, hydraulic connectivity and sealing capacity. Wireline logs can provide information on porosity that define storage capacity and rock mechanical properties that define sealing capacity for a proposed reservoir. Well tests and other dynamic measurements are used to determine maximum pressures for CO2 injectivity, though pore-size information from NMR logs provides a rapid evaluation tool for estimating formation permeability. The types of CO2 storage sites depend largely on the state of the CO2 to be stored, whether in supercritical or dissolved in saline waters, which in turn affects wireline responses for any in-situ monitoring strategies. Carbon storage as a mineral precipitate is gaining adherents in the CCUS community, especially when stored in basalt. Basalt storage evaluation depends in accurate porosity measurements in a very low porosity rock along with higher values in altered basalt layers. Much of the storage is located in fractures and in small pores found in altered or weathered basalt. Permeability in basalt is influenced primarily by a fracture network, characterization of which is done through analysis of image logs. Creation of fractures in basalt is a function of rock strength, which is interpreted via acoustic logging methods.

Brief Bio:

James Howard is currently a Research Professor in Geosciences at the University of Tulsa and a technical consultant to a geochemistry group at Columbia University on carbon storage in basalts. He is also a technical advisor to DigiM Solution, a software company that uses AI-powered image processing and analysis tools. Previously he was a Senior Research Fellow at ConocoPhillips’ subsurface laboratory in Bartlesville where he established and directed the Pore-Scale Characterization group. Trained as a clay mineralogist / geochemist, his career meandered from the sedimentology of shales, to logging tool design and interpretation, petrophysics with emphasis on NMR technology, advanced core analysis methods including multi-phase flow experiments at reservoir conditions, production scenarios for natural gas hydrates based on CH4-CO2 exchange, and finally back to measuring dynamic properties in very-low permeability shales. Getting involved with carbon storage issues is a nice way to spend one’s retirement.