Statement of Interest

It is a well-established fact that the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other green-house gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere have been progressively increasing since the time of industrial revolution. This increase of GHGs in the atmosphere, has led to a rise in the average global surface temperature. Scientists have been looking into measures for reducing the amount of CO2 emissions, and developing techniques to control global warming. So far, the significant measures that have been taken to control the CO2 emission are the use of less carbon intensive fuels, improving energy efficiency and carbon sequestration through different means.One of the important ways of reducing anthropogenic CO2 emission is to store it into underground geological formations. Therefore, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) strategy is a promising technology for large-scale carbon mitigation.One of the many interesting challenges associated with this technology involves quantitative modeling of the injection, flow mechanism, long-term storage fate, possible leakage, fluids displacement and reaction with injected CO2. At higher injection rate a larger volume of CO2 could be stored in depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs, saline aquifers or coal seams through horizontal wells without CO2 reaching to the top of storage formation according to the existing technology. But the issues of phase behavior, mass transfer, gravity override, unfavorable viscosity ratios still exist even if it is stored in supercritical or liquefied form. In addition to above injectivity problems supercritical CO2 may also react with the organic contents of the cap rock and cause minor changes in the permeability and porosity of the cap rock. The viscosity of supercritical CO2 also changes with temperature and pressure. During the displacement of water by CO2, the rheological properties of CO2 combined with the rock heterogeneity can lead to the flow instability and localization such as the development of fingering.

There are many more challenges associated with CO2 injection in addition to the above mentioned problems, but all of them are closely associated to reservoir geology as well as reservoir engineering disciplines. Therefore, a detailed knowledge of reservoir geology is prerequisite to deal with storage and seal rock properties as well as injectivity issues. While, an understanding of CO2 flow mechanism and numerical simulation studies are better served by the reservoir engineering discipline. Therefore being a reservoir engineer as well as a geologist, this research project matches to my educational background, experience and interest. Moreover, I look forward to further improve my current knowledge and experience on the topic by working with well reputed human resource of The University of Oslo, Norway.