No Seal – No Deal

In addition to a porous and permeable reservoir rock, there is one key element needed to store CO2 safely and long-term – the sealing caprock. In the No Seal – No Deal session at the NEXT conference in January, we have invited shale experts to share their knowledge and research results related to caprocks.

The University of Oslo Professor Nazmul Mondol will present a study involving various seal units (formations) in different CCS exploration licenses (Aurora, Smeheia, and Luna) on the NCS.

Particularly, the seal quality of Draupne and Drake shales will be reviewed. As expected, the caprocks show significant lithologic variabilities and diagenetic changes resulting in temporal and spatial variations of their hydraulic, acoustic, elastic, and geomechanical properties.

Emil Mejlhede Kinslev from the Technical University of Denmark will talk about how the shales that previously restrained the hydrocarbons from leaking to the surface in the North Sea also act as a barrier for the stored carbon.

However, the oil exploration and production wells that perforated these formations created pathways to the surface which, if not sealed, will cause carbon leakage and make storage unfeasible.