Model-guided processing of time-lapse seismic for realtime monitoring of CO2 geosequestration - CO2CRC Otway Project case study

Abstract

Carbon capture and storage is gaining acceptance around the world as one of the means for CO2 emission reduction. As the technology is just emerging, there is a necessity to address arising issues from technical details to geological hazards to public liaison. Otway Project is the first Australian attempt to address these issues. Stage 2C of the Otway Project is designed to identify the lower limit of CO2 detectable by seismic monitoring in saline aquifers. In this paper, we show that designing seismic processing workflows using a combination of baseline field data and a synthetic finite-difference 4D dataset speeds up time-lapse seismic processing to provide express time-lapse images of the plume with excellent signal-to-noise ratio and repeatability in less than a week upon completion of the monitor acquisition. Obtained time-lapse seismic images allow detection and tracking of the evolution of a small CO2-rich plume injected into a saline aquifer at 1500 m depth.