Determining Critical Flowrate in High CO2 Content Carbonate Field, Sarawak Basin, Offshore East Malaysia

Abstract

In line with PETRONAS commitment to monetize high CO2 content gas field in Malaysia, C Field which is a carbonate gas field located in East Malaysia's waters with approximately 70% of CO2 becomes main target for development because of its technical and economic feasibility. Injectivity has been determined as one of the key parameters that determine the success of CO2 storage in field operations. In order to characterize the CO2 injecitivity behavior in C Field, long duration coreflooding experiments has been conducted on two representative core samples under reservoir conditions. The first set of coreflooding test has been conducted on gas zone sample and another one is on aquifer sample. Two important approach has been applied in the experiment in which the first one is where the base rate is established after each incremental stage and the second one is the pre-equilibration of carbonated brine with standard minerals based on the percentage of core mineralogy before saturating the core with aquifer brine to mimic the insitu geochemical conditions of the reservoir. Pre- and post-flooding characterization was conducted using Routine Core Analysis (RCA), X-Ray CT-scan, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Inductive Coupled Plasma (ICP) to examine the porosity-permeability changes, pore size alterations and the geochemical processes that might take place during CO2 flooding. Based on the differential pressure data, it showed no clear indication of formation damage even after injection of large CO2 pore volume. Pre and post-flooding characterization supported the findings where minor dissolution/precipitation is observed. Overall intrepretation indicates that the critical flowrate is not yet reached for both samples within the maximum rates applied.