Initial 4D seismic results after CO2 injection start-up at the Aquistore storage site

The first post-CO2-injection 3D time-lapse seismic survey was conducted at the Aquistore CO2 storage site in February 2016 using the same permanent array of buried geophones used for acquisition of three previous pre-CO2-injection surveys fromMarch 2012 to November 2013. By February 2016, 36 kilotons of CO2 have been injected within the reservoir between 3170 and 3370 m depth. We have developed time-lapse results from analysis of the first post-CO2-injection data and three pre-CO2-injection data sets. The objective of our analysis was to evaluate the ability of the permanent array to detect the injected CO2. A 4D-friendly simultaneous processing flow was applied to the data in an effort to maximize the repeatability between the pre-and post-CO2 injection volumes while optimizing the final subsurface image including the reservoir. Excellent repeatability was achieved among all surveys with global normalized root-mean-square (Gnrms) values of 1.13-1.19 for the raw prestack data relative to the baseline data, which decreased during processing to Gnrms values of approximately 0.10 for the final crossequalized migrated data volumes. A zone of high normalized root-mean-square (nrms) values (0.11-0.25 as compared with background values of 0.05-0.10) is identified within the upper Deadwood unit of the storage reservoir, which likely corresponds to approximately 18 kilotons of CO2. No significant nrms anomalies are observed within the other reservoir units due to a combination of reduced seismic sensitivity, higher background nrms values, and/or small quantities of CO2 residing within these zones.