Flow regime analysis for fluid injection into a confined aquifer: implications for CO2 sequestration

Carbon dioxide injection into a confined saline aquifer may be modeled as an axisymmetric two-phase flow problem. Assuming the two fluids segregate in the vertical direction due to strong buoyancy, and neglecting capillary pressure and miscibility, the lubrication approximation leads to a nonlinear advection-diffusion equation that describes the evolution of the sharp fluid-fluid interface. The flow behaviors in the system are controlled by two dimensionless groups: M, the viscosity ratio of the displaced fluid relative to injected fluid, and Γ , the gravity number, which represents the relative importance of buoyancy and fluid injection. Four different analytical solutions can be derived as the asymptotic approximations, representing specific values of the parameter pairs. The four solutions correspond to: (1) Γ << 1, M <1; (2) Γ << 1, M =1; (3) Γ << 1, M >1; and (4) Γ >> 1, any M values. The first two of these solutions are new, while the third corresponds to the solution of Nordbotten and Celia (2006) for confined injections and the fourth corresponds to the solution of (Lyle et al., 2005) for gravity currents in an unconfined aquifer. Overall, the various axisymmetric flows can be summarized in a Γ-M regime diagram with five distinct dynamic behaviors including the four asymptotic regimes and an intermediate regime (Fig. 1). Data from a number of CO2 injection sites around the world can be used to compute the two dimensionless groups Γ and M associated with each injection. When plotted on the regime diagram, these values show the flow behavior for each injection and how the values vary from site to site. For all the CO2 injections, M is always larger than 1, while Γ can range from 0.01 up to 100. The pairs of (Γ, M) with lower Γ values correspond to solution (3), while the ones with higher Γ values can move up to the intermediate regime and the flow regime for solution (4). The higher values of Γ correspond to pilot-scale injections with low injection rates; most industrial-scale injection operations are expected to have low values of Γ. Other subsurface fluid injections can also be analyzed with this regime diagram. One example of water alternating gas enhanced oil recovery (WAG EOR) falls into the flow regime corresponds to the solution (1), and an example of waste disposal falls into the flow regime for solution (3).