Insights and Commentaries
Aquistore to provide valuable CO2 storage research
15th May 2015
Topic(s): Carbon capture, Engineering and project delivery, use and storage (CCUS)
Aquistore, Canada’s first deep saline aquifer storage site, is an example of Canada’s continued leadership in CCS technology development. This insight by the Institute’s Neil Wildgust, Principal Manager – Storage, outlines the role of Aquistore as both the dedicated storage option for CO2 captured at the Boundary Dam Power Station and as a host site for collaborative international research.
Picture from CO2degress.com
A newly published report for the Global CCS Institute by the Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC) of Regina, Saskatchewan provides a detailed description of the ground-breaking Aquistore project. On April 27 Aquistore became Canada’s first CO2 geological storage site in a deep saline aquifer with the beginning of an initial six month injection period. The Aquistore project is equipped with state of the art monitoring technology to improve understanding of CO2 behavior in the subsurface and provide assurance of environmental protection. Aquistore has also demonstrated the clear value of developing excellent relationships with local communities.
The province of Saskatchewan has been at the forefront of CCS technology development for several decades. Well in excess of 25 megatonnes (Mt) of anthropogenic CO2 has now been stored in the neighboring Weyburn and Midale oilfields as a result of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations, which have also provided the basis for over a decade of world-leading research by the IEAGHG Weyburn-Midale CO2 Monitoring and Storage Project.
Saskatchewan continued its leading role in CCS with the opening of SaskPower Corporation’s CO2 capture facility at the Boundary Dam Power Station in October 2014– the world’s first commercial scale, post-combustion capture of CO2 from a coal-fired power station. Approximately 1Mt/year will be captured and made available for utilisation in CO2-EOR operations at Weyburn. However, SaskPower also owns a dedicated storage site adjacent to Boundary Dam – the Aquistore project, which will provide a ”buffer” facility to EOR sales, thus giving operational flexibility.
Canada's first dedicated storage site
Storage at Aquistore is in Basal Cambrian sands at over 3km depth. The storage reservoir is overlain by a series of low permeability caprocks, including shales and salts, and there are no legacy wellbores in the area that penetrate down to these depths. Initial assessments therefore showed Aquistore to be a very low-risk option for geological storage, a finding subsequently confirmed by drilling of an injection well and monitoring well together with baseline geophysical surveys. These site investigations also confirmed that Aquistore meets operational requirements for storage capacity and injectivity.
As Canada’s first deep saline aquifer storage site, Aquistore also serves as an R&D project managed by PTRC. With the financial support of governments and industry and through a series of international collaborations, Aquistore is deploying a host of sophisticated monitoring technologies to monitor CO2 plume development within the reservoir; examples include the deployment of a distributed acoustic sensor (DAS) in the deep monitoring well and a permanent surface seismic array of geophones. Meanwhile, a comprehensive suite of shallow boreholes, monitoring installations and surveys have enabled essential baseline measurements of the local environment including groundwater, soils and ecosystems. Continued monitoring of shallow and surface installations will enable ongoing environmental surveillance during CO2 injection, providing reassurance to local stakeholders.
PTRC, in collaboration with SaskPower, has also developed excellent relations with local communities and other stakeholders. For example, open houses have been held in the nearby town of Estevan, allowing locals to discuss the project and associated environmental benefits with technical and academic experts.
The Global CCS Institute commissioned PTRC to detail learnings to date from the Aquistore project in a report for Institute members and for wider dissemination. Now available for download at the Institute website, the report covers Aquistore project management and sponsorship structure, technical goals, site selection and characterisation, risk assessment, drilling and monitoring programs. Public outreach and knowledge sharing activities are also described.
With the commissioning of the Boundary Dam capture plant and associated commercial CCS project, Aquistore will provide an important operational facility for SaskPower Corporation and generate valuable storage research for Canada and the wider world.