The CO2 DataShare digital platform.

The CO2 DataShare is a digital platform for sharing reference datasets from pioneering CO2 storage projects like Sleipner. The platform, which has now been launched, allows researchers based anywhere in the world, to download datasets from representative CO2 storage sites. Equinor, one of the World's leading companies in the advancement of CO2 storage, has provided its Sleipner 2019 Benchmark model through the CO2 DataShare Portal. The company in partnership with SINTEF, the University of Illinois and IEAGHG initiated the CO2 Storage Data Consortium in 2016 with financial support from Gassnova and the US Department of Energy.


CO2 DataShare offers a simple, standard, and low-cost solution for making CO2 storage data available, free of charge, to the international research community. In February 2020, datasets from the pioneer CO2 storage project Sleipner were published on the CO2 DataShare digital portal. Each year up to 1 million tonnes of CO2 from this natural gas field is captured and stored at Sleipner. This has provided a unique insight into what happens with CO2 stored in the subsurface over long periods of time.


The recently published datasets include the 2019 Sleipner reference model and several seismic surveys. The new geological benchmark model for the Sleipner CO2 storage site was built by Equinor based on seismic data calibrated to wellbore geological profiles. The simulation grid can be exported to any reservoir simulation package and is useful for investigating dynamic flow within the Sleipner system to understand how CO2 moves in the subsurface formation.


Access to well-documented, high-quality data is important because it enables the promotion of open, reproducible science and it stimulates accelerated value creation from technology development to deployment of CCS.


There is plenty of evidence to show that the new Sleipner datasets are already in active use. During the first three months the Sleipner reference model was downloaded 134 times and one of the seismic vintages was downloaded 85 times. A co-ordinated initiative by the Norwegian funding agency CLIMIT is inviting researchers to participate in a benchmark study during 2020 on CO2 plume dynamics using the new Sleipner datasets.


In addition to promoting research within universities and research institutes the available datasets are valuable for industrial CCS projects in development as well as for vendors of products and services relevant for CCS deployment.


The CO2 Storage Data consortium is actively pursuing new datasets to include in the portal. They are especially interested in diverse types of datasets, such as early-phase exploration and prospect evaluation data and other types of monitoring data. CCS projects interested in sharing datasets along with decision makers in the energy transition are welcome to contact the CO2 DataShare Consortium for more information about the project and how to participate.


For more information please visit:

https://blog.sintef.com/sintefenergy/ccs/sharing-co2-storage-data-to-fast-track-ccs-development/