Identification and evaluation of CCS sweet spots in the West Netherlands Basin

Abstract

Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) is expected to become a serious CO2-emission reduction technology in the Netherlands, for example in the mature West Netherlands Basin (WNB). This study aims to identify and evaluate potential CO2-storage reservoirs based on geological boundary conditions. These criteria are applied to a basin-scale structural model of the WNB in combination with a literature review on lithology and petrophysical parameters of the targeted Triassic and Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous intervals. Selected 'sweet spots' are evaluated through the construction of high-resolution 3D static reservoir models. These serve as the basis for estimations of CO2-storage capacity, dynamic flow modelling and overburden studies. The results of this study are not only important for the selection of locations for future CCS projects, but they also serve to assess the proposed workflow, showing that reservoir structure, facies architecture and petrophysical properties play a major role in calculating storage potential. Furthermore, the conventional approach to calculating CO2-storage capacity from average petrophysical values is found to significantly overestimate injectable volumes when compared to the results of this study. This emphasises the need for an accurate facies distribution model in estimating the CO2-storage potential.