CO₂ Sequestration Potential of the North Michigan Silurian Reef

Authors: Brian Toelle, Chaoqing Yang (speaker), and Tracee Imai, Schlumberger Ltd.

Venue: Eastern Section of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists 2007 Annual Meeting, Lexington, KY, September 16–18, 2007 (http://www.uky.edu/KGS/esaapg07/ [external site]).

Abstract: The Northern Silurian Reef trend of the Michigan Basin was developed within the stratigraphic unit historically referred to as the Niagaran Brown. Within the past few years this unit was renamed the Guelph Formation. Over 700 reefs make up this trend, with some of these being over 300 acres in size and having produced more than 5 million barrels of oil. Estimates of the total amount of hydrocarbons produced for the entire trend have been reported to be as much as nearly a half a billion barrels. The U.S. Department of Energy has funded a study of an ongoing enhanced oil recovery project being conducted on a reef within this trend and entailing CO₂ injection. The Charlton 30/31 reef, located in Otsego County, MI, like many other reefs in the play, was discovered and developed during the 1970s and 1980s. This field has completed its primary production phase, during which six wells produced 2.6 million of the field’s estimated 7 million barrels of oil in place. This reservoir is characterized as a low-porosity, low-permeability limestone matrix with irregular dolomitized intervals providing a secondary network of higher porosity and permeability, which controls fluid flow throughout the reservoir. The estimated average porosity in this reef is just slightly over 6 percent. As part of this study, the reservoir attributes identified at the Charlton 30/31 reef were extended to the entire Northern Reef Trend in order to determine its CO₂ sequestration capacity. Additionally, the potential oil recovery has been estimated.

Related NETL Projects: The goal of the related NETL project DE-FC26-04NT 15425, “Application of Time-Lapse Seismic Monitoring for the Control and Optimization of CO₂ Enhanced Oil Recovery Operations,” is twofold, per its two phases. The objective of the first phase is to characterize the reservoir using advanced evaluation methods in order to assess the potential of a CO₂ flood of the target reservoir. This reservoir characterization includes advanced petrophysical, geophysical, geological, reservoir engineering, and reservoir simulation technologies. The objective of the second project phase is to demonstrate the benefits of using advanced seismic methods for the monitoring of the CO₂ flood fronts.

NETL Project Contacts
NETL – Purna Halder (purna.halder@netl.doe.gov or 918-699-2084)
Schlumberger – Joseph Frantz (frantz@pittsburgh.oilfield.slb.com or 412-787-5403)