Topological comparisons of fluvial reservoir rock volumes using Betti numbers: Application to Co2 storage uncertainty analysis

Abstract

To prevent the release of large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere, carbon capture and storage (CCS) represents a potential means of mitigating the contribution of fossil fuel emissions to global warming and ocean acidification. Fluvial saline aquifers are favourite targeted reservoirs for CO2 storage. These reservoirs are very heterogeneous but their heterogeneities were rarely integrated into CO2 reservoir models. Moreover, contrary to petroleum reservoirs, the available dataset is very limited and not supposed to be enriched. This leads to wide uncertainties on reservoir characteristics required for CSS management (injection location, CO2 plume migration, etc.). Stochastic simulations are classical strategies in such under-constrained context. They aim at generating a wide number of models that all fit the available dataset. The generated models serve as support for computing the required reservoir characteristics and their uncertainties. A challenge is to optimize the uncertainty computations by selecting stochastic models that should have a priori very different flow behaviours. Fluid flows depend on the connectivity of reservoir rocks (channel deposits). In this paper, it is proposed to study the variability of the Betti numbers in function of different fluvial architectures. The aim is to quantify the impact of fluvial heterogeneities and their spatial distribution on reservoir rock topology and then on CO2 storage capacities. Representative models of different scenarios of channel stacking and their internal heterogeneities are generated using geostatistical simulation approaches. The Betti numbers are computed on each generated models and statistically analysed to exhibit if fluvial architecture controls reservoir topology.