Summit 2021 Faraj Zarei Underground hydrogen storage simulation using CMG suite

Faraj Zarei, Computer Modelling Group Ltd.

Underground hydrogen storage simulation using CMG suite

Countries all around the world have started the transition from fossil fuels towards more clean resources. Supply and demand mismatch and fluctuations of both, have added major challenges to this energy transition process. Underground hydrogen storage in depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs provides large volumes of storing hydrogen with minimal costs and operational complexities. Many of the installations and wells once used for hydrocarbon production can be repurposed for hydrogen injections and productions. Physical processes including hysteresis, solubility and diffusivity are required to be accurately modelled to minimise the hydrogen loss in such a multiphase flow environment. Injected hydrogen can also affect geochemical and biological environments triggering some unwanted reactions with side-effects like scaling and souring. Until hydrogen is widely adopted, underground bio-methanation (UBM) could be used as an infrastructure design to supply the world natural gas where injecting H2 into UCCS reservoirs generates artificially methane.
This talk elaborates on numerical modelling capabilities of CMG software in different studies such as screening the candidate wells for injection/production cycles of Hydrogen, optimal scheduling, interacting various phenomena within the reservoir. Such studies are only possible in an integrated dynamic model covering all the required physics, and thermo-chemical behavior.