Understanding CO₂ Behavior in Reservoirs: Integrated Workflows for EOR and Carbon Storage
Webinar available to view on this page
Understanding how injected CO₂ moves through a reservoir is essential for both enhanced oil recovery and geologic carbon storage. Whether the goal is to improve production efficiency, monitor incidental CO₂ storage, or support future commercial-scale sequestration projects, operators need reliable ways to track where CO₂ goes, how pressure changes over time, and how reservoir heterogeneity influences fluid movement.
This webinar explores an integrated geoscience and engineering workflow designed to improve interpretation, monitoring, and reservoir-model updating in CO₂ EOR applications.
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Why CO₂ Monitoring Matters
CO₂ injection introduces complex changes into the subsurface. Fluid substitution, pressure changes, production effects, and geologic heterogeneity can all influence the seismic response and reservoir behavior. To make confident operational decisions, teams need a strong understanding of both the static geologic framework and the dynamic changes occurring during injection and production.
Successful CO₂ EOR and carbon storage projects depend on interdisciplinary collaboration across geophysics, geology, petrophysics, reservoir engineering, and simulation. They also require well-defined workflows that connect data acquisition, seismic interpretation, inversion, uncertainty analysis, and reservoir simulation.
An Integrated Workflow for Reservoir Understanding
In the webinar, we present a series of workflow steps that optimize the use of available data to better interpret facies, injection effects, and production-related changes in an EOR setting.
The workflow begins with a simulation-to-seismic model supported by rock physics. This step helps determine the expected seismic response and evaluate the signal quality needed for effective 4D seismic monitoring of fluid and pressure changes in the reservoir.
From there, we apply Bayesian inversion techniques to baseline and monitor seismic data sets. These methods allow us to estimate facies and impedances while balancing prior reservoir knowledge with the information contained in recorded time-lapse seismic data.
Comparing Multiple Inversion Approaches
To better understand uncertainty and reduce interpretation risk, the seismic data sets are inverted using multiple approaches.
First, the baseline and monitor seismic vintages are inverted independently using sensible parameter scenarios. The resulting realizations are then used to build a shared prior model that links reservoir facies geometry between seismic vintages during inversion.
This approach helps maintain geologic consistency while still allowing the 4D seismic data to inform the interpretation of reservoir changes over time.
Quantifying Uncertainty in CO₂ Predictions
Reservoir decisions are rarely based on a single deterministic interpretation. In this workflow, multirealization analysis methods are used to quantify uncertainty in predicted facies, impedances, and production-related effects.
By evaluating multiple plausible outcomes, teams can better understand the range of possible CO₂ distributions and pressure responses. This supports more informed decision-making in EOR operations and future geologic storage applications.
Directly Interrogating Production Effects
The webinar also demonstrates how the data can be examined more deeply by using facies inversion methods to invert prestack seismic differences directly for production effects.
This provides a more targeted way to assess dynamic reservoir changes and distinguish between geologic, fluid, and pressure-related signals. The result is a clearer understanding of how injection and production activities are affecting the reservoir.
Closing the Loop: Updating Reservoir Simulation Models
A key part of the workflow is the feedback loop between geophysical interpretation and reservoir simulation. The webinar discusses how static and dynamic reservoir simulation models can be updated using insights from seismic inversion, production data, and engineering analysis.
This integration allows geophysical and engineering data to be brought together within a single model, improving the representation of reservoir behavior and supporting better operational planning.
Key Takeaways
This webinar highlights how integrated workflows can improve CO₂ monitoring and reservoir understanding by combining rock physics, 4D seismic data, Bayesian inversion, uncertainty analysis, and reservoir simulation.
Viewers will learn how these techniques can help:
- Delineate the spatial distribution of injected CO₂
- Improve interpretation of facies and reservoir heterogeneity
- Monitor fluid and pressure changes through time-lapse seismic data
- Quantify uncertainty in reservoir predictions
- Integrate geophysical and engineering data into reservoir models
- Support better decision-making in EOR and geologic CO₂ storage projects
View the Webinar
The full webinar is available to watch on this page. Learn how an integrated geoscience and engineering workflow can improve understanding of CO₂ behavior in the subsurface and support more confident reservoir management.
