Marie Macquet, Don Lawton, Carbon Management Canada, Canada, Brendan Kolkman-Quinn, University of Calgary
The Containment and Monitoring Institute (CaMI) of CMC, in collaboration with the University of Calgary, operates a comprehensive CO₂ injection and storage program at its Field Research Station (FRS) in Newell County, Alberta, Canada. At the FRS, we are injecting small and controlled volumes of CO₂ into the Basal Belly River Sandstone Formation at a depth of 300 m, simulating a leak from a deep CO₂ storage project. The small amount of injected CO₂ (46.1 tonnes at the end of October 2021) enables us to improve and develop monitoring technologies for CO₂ injection and storage, and to determine the detection threshold for the different monitoring methods. The FRS hosts a broad range of geophysical and geochemical monitoring technologies including surface-based systems as well as in those contained in two observation wells that are located 20 m (geophysics) and 30 m (geochemistry) from the CO₂ injection well. Continuous technologies include fibre-based distributed temperature sensing (DTS) in the injection well and in the two observation wells; pressure and temperature gauges in the injection and observation wells; microseismicity monitoring through broadband stations, borehole and surface geophones; and daily electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) surveys. In addition, regular 2D, 3D and vertical seismic profile (VSP) active seismic surveys are also being acquired using conventional geophones as well as distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) fiber optic cables and in-development sensors. We will present the CaMI Field Research Station and provide an overview of the monitoring program, with a focus on imaging the CO₂ plume from time-lapse DAS and geophone VSP surveys, ERT surveys and the continuous microseismicity program, and the effectiveness of these technologies to provide early warning of a loss of containment from a deep CO₂ storage reservoir.