New IEAGHG Reports: Monitoring & Environmental Research Combined Networks Meeting and Workshop on ‘Faults and their significance for large-scale CO₂ storage’

 These reports are summaries of the meetings held in August 2019 by IEAGHG; the Monitoring & Environmental Research Combined Networks Meeting and IEAGHG’s first workshop on ‘Faults and their Significance for Large-Sale CO₂ Storage’.These two meeting were held back to back from the 20^th – 23^rd August 2019 and hosted by the University of Calgary, Canada.

It was the 13^th meeting of IEAGHG’s Monitoring Network, combined with the Environmental Research Network, to facilitate wider topic broaching and encourage broader discussions.The two day meeting was preceded by a field trip to the Containment and Monitoring Institute (CaMI) field research station site visit.

The key sessions included: developments in sensing; lessons learned from managing field projects; uncertainty in quantification; monitoring for storage with EOR (enhanced oil recovery) compared with DSF (deep saline formation) requirements; what to do when primary techniques don’t work; new case studies of real data; environmental impacts of monitoring; stakeholder engagement; upwell leakage; and monitoring post-injection for site closure. 

The high level messages to come out of this meeting stressed the significant developments in marine and terrestrial sensing.Other views expressed highlighted the influence of social media and the necessity to respond to it.As a maintenance problem it should be accepted and dealt with.Long-term monitoring needs to be achieved with reliable tools and quantification is now attainable in marine environments.The main recommendations reached are: to learn from social scientists on how to communicate; to look into the simplification of systems so they are appropriate for small operators; and to stick to detection, attribution and quantification.

The aim of the workshop on ‘Faults and their Significance for Large-Sale CO₂ Storage’ was to gain a greater understanding on how faults could influence long-term storage of CO₂. The success of CCS technology depends on the safe, secure and long-term storage of CO₂ at large-scale (mega tonnes per site).Upward migration and leakage of injected CO₂ along faults is a key risk.The workshop built on oil and gas industry experiences, as well as the research community, to gain a clear perspective on fault properties that are important to CO₂ storage.The 1-day event provided an opportunity to review laboratory experiments, field studies, and modelling results, to gain insights on the importance of faults for CO₂ storage.Current practices to evaluate fault seal as well as critical technical gaps were discussed.

The workshop gave an opportunity to review current research on CO₂ controlled release experiments and what could be learned from them, plus the contribution from simulations.Speakers and delegates documented critical issues for CO₂ storage related to faults, the experience of current experimental work, and identify remaining gaps in knowledge.

To request a copy of the reports, please email tom.billcliff@ieaghg.org with the report reference number/s (2020-02 for the Monitoring & Environmental Research Combined Networks Meeting report, or 2020-03 for the ‘Faults and their Significance for Large-Sale CO₂ Storage’ workshop report).​