Impact of Injection Rate for CO2 Storage Within Sedimentary Basins, a Multidisciplinary Analysis of Focused Fluid Flow

Carbon sequestration within sedimentary basins (e.g., sandstone reservoirs, saline aquifers) is one of the promising solutions for reducing GHG emissions. However, this will require the current rate of CO2 injection to be increased by several orders of magnitude. In practice this will be a shift from a scattered set of pilot projects worldwide e.g. Sleipner, Quest) to large-scale, regional CO2 injection across a range of sedimentary basins. As a result, there will be a large variety of different 'CO2 systems', with critical and sometimes challenging variations in both the reservoir and caprock conditions, both locally and regionally. As the CCUS industry scales it will become increasingly important to understand how the simultaneous injection of CO2 across extensive clustered sites will impact overpressure. Research on naturally occurring fluid migration systems shows that when critical boundaries are crossed for regional overpressure, release of gases can occur from the subsurface via different physical mechanisms. To enhance our understanding of this, we utilise analogue and numerical modelling in combination with seismic analysis to identify potential areas of further research within this previously largely unexplored risk category.