ISRM International Symposium 2008

5th Asian Rock Mechanics Symposium (ARMS5), 24-26 November 2008 Tehran, Iran

GEOMECHANICAL EFFECTS OF GAS STORAGE IN DEPLETED GAS FIELDS

N. CASTELLETTO1, M. FERRONATO1, G. GAMBOLATI1, C. JANNA1, I. SALCE1 and P. TEATINI1

1
Dept. Mathematical Methods and Models for Scientific Applications (DMMMSA) - University of Padova, Italy
(e-mail of corresponding author: gambo@dmsa.unipd.it)

Abstract
Cyclic gas storage in and withdrawal from subsurface gas fields generate a sequence of loading-unloading cycles in both the
sandy permeable formation and the confining clayey caprock. A basic requirement for the safety of the underground gas disposal
is that the related stress variation does not jeopardize the sealing capacity of the caprock, especially if the pore fluid pressure
should exceed the original in situ value in order to increase the volume of the injected gas. Moreover, as a side effect the reservoir
deformation can induce a non negligible cyclic motion of the ground surface, with possible undesired consequences for the
existing civil structures and infrastructures. The present communication aims at investigating numerically the expected
geomechanical effects of gas storage in a depleted gas reservoir located in Italy. Computer simulations are performed using quite
realistic information on the geometrical and geomechanical properties of the field. Two disposal scenarios are assumed where the
maximum pore pressure in the injection stage may increase from 120% up to 150% of its original value. The results show that no
significant stress changes are caused in the caprock in the most unfavourable scenario as well, thus ensuring the safety of the
operation. However, a shear failure condition can be locally attained in the injected formation. Such an occurrence should be
carefully considered and possibly monitored, especially if the failure is predicted close to the injecting wells with potential large
displacements which could damage the hole casing. Finally, the reservoir deformation can induce a cyclic vertical ground motion
up to a few centimetres according to the generated pore pressure fluctuation, the burial depth and the actual rock geo-mechanical
properties of the field and the overburden. Such a motion, however, is expected to occur mainly in the elastic range and is almost
fully recovered over a complete injection-withdrawal sequence, with little concern for the safety of the existing civil structures.
Keywords: : gas storage; land motion; finite elements.

1. Introduction subsurface gas storage plan a major issue is the

economical convenience to store as much gas as
Injecting fluids underground is currently being
possible. The storable gas quantity is mainly
practiced worldwide for a large variety of
related to the safety of the operation as far as the
purposes: 1- disposal of formation water and
integrity of both the caprock and the injection
brine extracted during oil/gas pumping; 2-
wells are concerned and to the impact on the
disposal of industrial wastes; 3- production of
land surface. In turn these are related to the
bitumen, uranium and salt; 4- enhanced oil
overpressure allowed for by the gas pumped into
recovery; 5- remediation or mitigation of
the formation. The integrity of the caprock and
anthropogenic land subsidence; 6- seasonal gas
injecting well casing is monitored by how far the
storage to implement the national energetic
predicted maximum shear stress turns out to be
programme. The US Environmental Protection
from the limiting condition of a shear failure that
Agency lists 400,000 fluid injection facilities in
might cause a way of escape for the gas and a
the United States alone [1]. Gas storage fields
significant damage to the well-bore, respectively.
are typically depleted geological reservoirs
The land surface impact is measured by the
confined on top by an impermeable caprock and
magnitude of the seasonal movements (rebound
laterally by a waterdrive. They are used in
and settlement) experienced by the ground that
summer to stock gas that is withdrawn in winter
should not be such as to induce a possible danger
to cope with the energy needs of the country.
to the overlying structures and infrastructures.
The working gas requirement is generally 50%
By the use of the satellite interferometry it is
of the total field capacity. However, due to the
now possible to measure millimetre vertical and
recent dramatic improvements of the measuring
horizontal displacements [2, 3, 4, 5], and
and monitoring technology, this limit can be
therefore monitor, control and predict accurately
most likely and quite safely overcome. In a
with the aid of continuously updated numerical

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models the ongoing geo-mechanical process in anisotropic conductivity tensor, Ss(h) the specific
order to avoid undesired consequences over the storage dependent on the solution h, and ∇ is the
area where the storage reservoir is located. gradient operator. In particular, Δp is evaluated
Using the data of some real gas fields in Italy from (1) by a 3D nonlinear FE model where the
the present communication addresses a few geo- reservoir Δp is prescribed over the reservoir
mechanical issues that are concerned with an boundary viewed as an inner boundary of the
underground gas storage programme, i.e. waterdrive [9, 11].
maximum capacity of the reservoir, maximum The Δp solution from (1) is used in the
field stresses and strains consistent with safety equilibrium equations that in an isotropic
requirements and land uplift/subsidence during a medium can be written in terms of incremental
typical injection/withdrawal cycle. A sediment displacement u as:
representative reservoir ideally seated at a 1000
∂ε ∂Δp
m depth is selected with the injection programme G∇ 2 u x + (λ + G ) =α
planned so as to raise the gas pore pressure up to ∂x ∂x
∂ ε ∂Δp
120% and 150% of the original value that G∇ 2 u y + (λ + G ) =α (2)
existed prior to the field development. The ∂y ∂y
starting point of the injection programme is that ∂ε ∂Δp
of a full field depletion consistent with the G∇ 2 u z + (λ + G ) =α
∂z ∂z
reservoir burial depth and a hydrostatic pore
pressure gradient. We use the geomechanical where λ and G are the Lamé constant and the
constitutive law derived for the Northern shear modulus of medium, respectively, ε is the
Adriatic basin developed by Baù et al. [6]. The volumetric strain, α the Biot coefficient, and ux,
modelling simulations are performed with a view uy, uz are the components of u along the
at the possible caprock and well casing failure, coordinate directions.
especially in the most extreme scenario, and the Equations (1) and (2) are highly non-linear
fluctuating vertical ground motion above the because of Ss in (1), and λ and G in (2), which
field. vary with the in situ effective intergranular
stress, hence the fluid pore pressure. The
2. Mathematical Model mechanical parameters λ and G are related to the
The response of a depleted gas field to a seasonal vertical uniaxial compressibility cM:
gas storage program can be predicted with the
1 − 2ν
aid of nonlinear Finite-Element (FE) flow and G= (3)
structural models. As it is often done in 2(1 − ν )cM
petroleum engineering, we use an uncoupled
ν
approach [7, 8, 9, 10]. λ= (4)
Let us assume that the pore pressure
(1 −ν )c M
distribution within the reservoir is known, and is with ν the Poisson ratio. The compressibility
provided by borehole measurements or a cM varies according to the current stress state and
reservoir model. The pore pressure variation in path, i.e. loading or loading/unloading
the waterdrive is calculated using the classical conditions, on the basis of an appropriate
subsurface flow equation: constitutive relationship. Both the differential
∂h equation (1) and the system (2) can be solved
∇ ⋅ (K∇h ) = S s (h ) + f (x,y,z,t ) (1) numerically by FE [12, 13] for a generally
∂t
heterogeneous medium with the vertical land
where h=Δp(x,y,z,t)/γw is the hydraulic head motion provided by uz at z = 0.
variation, γw the specific weight of water, K the

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3. Numerical Results
The geomechanical effects of a feasible gas
storage program are investigated by simulating
the deformation of a porous volume subject to a
cyclic pore pressure change induced by gas
injection/withdrawal. The numerical simulations
make use of a realistic geological setting
representative of the Po river basin. The porous
medium is a layered structure and the conceptual
model consists of a pumped sandy unit overlain
and underlain by clayey confining beds. The
porous volume is discretized into linear
tetrahedral elements forming a box with an areal
extent of 60x50 km confined by the ground
surface above and a 10-km deep rigid basement
below (Figure 1a). The three-dimensional (3D)
mesh is made of 106,107 nodes and 613,140
tetrahedra. The ground surface is a traction-free
plane and zero displacements are prescribed at
the bottom and outer boundary. The basement is
impermeable while the lateral boundary is
assumed as a fixed (zero) boundary for pore
pressure. The reservoir is ideally located at a
depth of 1000 m and has the plane shape of an
ellipsis with the major and the minor axis equal
to 5 km and 2 km, respectively. We assume a
maximum reservoir thickness of 50 m with a
bottom/lateral waterdrive displaying an average
100 m thickness (Figure 1b). Above and below Fig. 1. Axonometric view of the tetrahedral mesh used
to discretize the integration domain (a), and vertical
the reservoir and the associated confining beds
section by the reservoir along the trace AA with a
the medium is made of an alternating sequence vertical exaggeration of 10 (b).
of sandy and clayey units. A representative
conductivity value of a fine-grained injected Two test cases are addressed depending on
sandy formation of the Po river basin is on the the largest overpressure Δpmax experienced by the
order of 1x10-5 m/s, while the relationship reservoir. In the former, labelled Scenario A, the
developed by Baù et al. [6] is selected as the pore pressure achieves 120% of the initial
constitutive law for cM, both in loading and reservoir pressure Pi = 100 bar, while in the
unloading/reloading conditions. In particular, in latter, labelled Scenario B, the pore pressure is
expansion cM is assumed to be 4 times less than 150% of Pi. In both cases the simulation spans a
its value in compression [14]. 10-year period overall. The reservoir is initially
produced for 5 years, and a gas storage program
is implemented afterwards. Storage operations
are assumed to last 6 months with gas removal
planned for the remaining 6 months. A realistic
field history for Δp vs. time, where the largest
field depressurization equates the largest
overpressure as shown in Figure 2, is assumed in

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the reservoir for the two scenarios.

Fig. 2. Reservoir Δp profiles vs. time assumed in the

two simulated test cases.

The results of the simulation show that,

consistent with the highest overpressure
achieved, the largest rebound is obtained at the
end of each injection cycle and is equal to 6 cm
and 15 cm in Scenario A and Scenario B,
respectively. Figure 3 provides the vertical
displacements predicted during an injection
cycle. In addition to the peak values, the
simulated cases differ also for the size of the area
affected by ground motion. In particular, the 1
cm isoline encompasses approximately a circle
with a radius of 6 km in Scenario A and 9 km in
Scenario B. It is worth noting that the safety of
the existing civil structures and infrastructures
depends more on the gradient of the vertical
displacement than on its peak absolute value.
The largest gradients turn out to be 2x10-5 in
Scenario A and 6x10-5 in Scenario B, i.e. far
below the maximum bounds recommended for
Fig. 3. Maximum land vertical displacement (cm)
engineered structures [15, 16]. We recall that the during an injection cycle in Scenario A (a) and in
most severe indications are related to the Scenario B (b). The reservoir trace is highlighted in
maximum distortion acceptable for masonry grey.
buildings with more than one floor. Such a limit
It is also of paramount importance to ascertain
is 5x10-4, i.e. about 8 times larger than the
whether the stress changes induced by the
highest gradient of Scenario B. For reinforced
massive gas injection and extraction may
concrete and steel structures the above limit is
jeopardize the caprock integrity. In fact, a local
10-15 times larger, with a corresponding
loss in the sealing capacity of the rock could
increase of the safety level.
eventually cause the gas escape from the storage
formation, with its undesired migration towards
other formations, or even up to the surface. The

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failure mechanism can be analyzed with the aid
of a Mohr diagram. Denote by σ and τ the
normal (positive in compression) and the shear
stress, respectively, with σ1 and σ3 the maximum
and the minimum principal component of
compression stress respectively. A sketch of how
the stress state changes after a pore pressure
variation is shown in Figure 4. During reservoir
depletion the pore pressure decreases with the
Mohr’s circle moving rightwards, i.e. far from
the yield surface. By contrast, gas injection
produces a pore pressure increase, namely an
effective stress decrease, with the circle moving
leftwards and approaching the yield surface in
the σ - τ plane.
Fig. 4. Schematic representation of a Mohr diagram
used to describe stress state changes.
The safety factor χ accounting for the risk of a
shear shear failure can be defined as:
τs
χ = 1−
τ *s
where τs is the maximum predicted shear stress
and τs* represents the least distance between the
centre of Mohr’s circle and the yield surface
(Figure 4). Failure conditions are approached as
χ tends to 0. In terms of principal stresses, the
expressions for τs and τs* read:
σ1 −σ 3
τs =
2 120% of the initial reservoir pore pressure Pi. By
σ1 + σ 3
τ *s = ccosφ + sinφ (7)
2
with c the cohesion and φ the friction angle of
the medium. We assume φ = 30° with no
cohesion (c = 0 MPa). Figure 5 and Figure 6
show the χ distribution in some cross-sections of
the reservoir and the sealing caprock at the end
of an injection cycle, i.e. the extreme condition
for χ. The potential for a shear failure is very
low in the caprock, thus its integrity is fully
warranted in both scenarios. On the other hand,
in Scenario B the injected formation exhibits an
abrupt decrease of χ close to the boundary of the
reservoir and a shear failure cannot be ruled out.
Fig. 5. Contour plot of χ in a cross-section along the
(5) major axis of the reservoir in Scenario A (a) and
Scenario B (b), respectively. The least χ values are
encompassed by a circle and are located at the boundary
of the reservoir. GWC indicates the gas-water contact
surface.
On summary, our general comment is that in
the present quite realistic example the
implementation of a storage program in Po river
plain depleted gas fields located at the depth of
about 1000 m is quite safe from a geomechanical
(6) viewpoint when inducing an overpressure up to
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distinction, although the caprock does not appear
to experience any significant stress change, a
larger overpressure variation of 150% Pi requires
some caution as a shear failure may occur in the
injected reservoir.
Fig. 6. The same as Figure 5 for a cross-section along
the minor axis of the reservoir.
4. Conclusions
A sustainable program of gas storage in
subsurface depleted gas reservoirs can be
effectively designed along with a prediction of
the land surface deformation and the caprock
stress state. This can be done with the aid of
advanced FE hydrologic and geomechanical
models based on representative geomechanical
data.
Using realistic information from the Po river
basin, Italy, a gas reservoir subject to
injection/withdrawal is simulated for two storage
scenarios, i.e. according to whether a pore
pressure equal to 120% and 150% of the initial
reservoir pore pressure Pi is achieved at the end
of the injection phase. The numerical simulations
show that the ground surface exhibits a cyclic
elastic up and down motion on the order of 6 and
15 cm, respectively, with no actual concerns for
the stability of the manmade buildings and
infrastructures. The integrity of the confining
caprock appears to be secured as well. By
distinction, a shear failure is likely to occur
locally in the injected formation in the more
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massive injection scenario (150% Pi ).
Provided that a representative geomechanical
database is available, numerical models are a
useful tool to predict the structural effects of a
gas storage project in subsurface exhausted
reservoirs. Essential information for a reliable
prediction would require: 1) the use of
instrumented boreholes with piezometers and a
set of radioactive markers for the real-time
measurement of the pore overpressure and the
formation expansion and compression,
respectively; 2) the monitoring of the land
motion (i.e. horizontal and vertical
displacements) in time and space by the use of
GPS and a persistent scatterer interferometry
(PSI). This information would also be of
paramount importance to provide a real time
control of the ongoing process and to allow for a
timely arrest of the storage program in case of
unexpected unsafe conditions.
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