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Petrophysical Evaluation for a Geothermal Project in Tønder

Article · September 2013

DOI: 10.3997/2214-4609.20131608

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PETROPHYSICAL EVALUATION FOR A GEOTHERMAL PROJECT IN TØNDER

Sanchez Javier, Ofori Yaw, Oil and Gas Technology department, Aalborg University Esbjerg, Denmark

Introduction

In Europe climate change has become a day to day topic stimulating European organizations to take
actions to set and achieve targets related to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, supporting and
funding new developments in Wind and Wave Energy, Biotechnology, Earth Sciences including
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and Geothermal Energy which is the focus of this paper.

Geothermal Energy is becoming an important technology around the world, accounting for
approximately 1 % of the total global electricity output and the installed capacity is expected to
double from 2010 to 2020. This source of energy is estimated to be 50,000 (UCSUSA) times the
energy of the world’s oil and gas reserves. There are several geothermal systems in place. In this
paper the case of analysing geophysical parameters for a Geothermal District Heating System
(GeoDH) is presented. The project was developed for Dansk Geotermi ApS Company with the
objective to build a GeoDH Plant in the municipality of Tønder, Denmark, located close to the
Danish-German border.

The brine from the geothermal reservoir will flow through a piping system from the production well
to the surface and will enter Tønder’s heat exchanger (HE) at ~75 °C. In the HE, the heated reservoir
brine will heat up another fluid for onward district heating purposes. The fluid used in the system is
water and in some cases mixed with FRA’s (friction reducing agents) and known as “smooth water”.
The heated smooth water will be pumped for distribution through a closed looped insulated pipeline
system of diameter between DN 200 to DN 1000 mm. The brine coming out of the heat exchanger is
expected to be re-injected to the reservoir at a temperature of 40 °C (standard returned temperature).

Figure 1 Geothermal district heating system in Tønder, Denmark

EGEC (European Geothermal Energy Council) describes Germany, France, Hungary and Denmark in
a report (EGEC Deep Geothermal Market Report, 2011) as hot markets because most installations
between 2011 and 2014 are expected to be in these countries. Germany will install 64 new systems,
France 22, Hungary 17 and Denmark 13; obtaining a total of 116 installed systems and at least 232
drilled wells. In Tønder’s case four wells will be drilled; two production and two injection. The
GeoDH plant will be placed in the centre with a distance of 1000 to 1200 meters to each well.

The initial data used for geophysical interpretation included five drilled wells close to Tønder,
northwest from the map showed in figure 1. Well number 3, 4 and 5 located with a distance between 3
to 4 kilometres from the site centre were analysed. The well data used for the analysis included
completion reports, well logs, conventional core samples and side wall cores. The wells were drilled
for DAPCO in the 50’s (well 1 and 2), Maersk Oil and Gas (well 3) and DONG Energy (well 4 and 5)

Sustainable Earth Sciences 2013

30 September - 4 October 2013, Pau, France
during the 80’s currently owned by Energinet; the companies are large players in the Danish energy
market except for DAPCO (Danish American Prospecting Company). At that time the objective was
to explore hydrocarbon content and it was concluded that the anticline formation only contained a gas
cap; production never took place because the gas content was 99.8 % Nitrogen. Wells to be drilled
for this geothermal project are to be at depths deeper than 1900 m with attendant increase in reservoir
temperatures above 75 °C.

Analysis and Interpretation of Key Geophysical Parameters

The targeted reservoir is located at the Lower Bunter Sandstone Formation at the depth range of 1786
m to 1885 m; depending on the well’s location. The thickness of the layer on average is 30 m.
However zonation and interpretation of the logs show 20 m of good net sandstone and 7 m of
excellent production characteristics.

There were several issues to consider regarding the properties of the chosen reservoir: the temperature
variation across the reservoir, the high salinity of the formation brine which can lead to the salt
precipitating in tubing during production, the permeability of the layer, which has to be high enough
to provide stable brine supply, and the location of future wells to be drilled. The expected flow rate is
200 m3/h as calculated by GEUS (Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland). Tønder’s GeoDH
System is expected to have an equivalent of 16 MW of heat output.

One of the factors of interest in any well is the resistivity of the formation water and even more in a
geothermal project as this is the target resource. The formation water in these wells has very high salt
contents; averaging 1.8 g/L of Potassium, 115 g/L of Sodium and 327 g/L of TDS. These rather high
salinity values and mineral content throw up the possibility of salt precipitation in the pipelines with
decreased pressure and temperature. The average bottom hole temperature of the wells is upwards of
75 °C. Salt precipitation apart from possibly blocking the pipelines salt precipitation may speed up
corrosion if in contact with oxygen. The probable blockage of the injection well by the accumulation
of salt over time is an issue of real concern. Several approaches to circumvent this problem have been
proposed.

The pressure in a reservoir is important to the production levels from the reservoir, it is therefore
crucial to maintain the pressure in the reservoir. The produced water is to be re-injected into the
reservoir not only to replenish the reservoir but also to help maintain the bottom hole pressure of the
reservoir. This procedure however over the course of time will lead to a reduction in the reservoir
temperature (in Tønder is expected to start decreasing after 30 years).

Figure 2 Wells location and declination angle

The available logging data included the gamma ray, spontaneous potential, resistivity, acoustic,
neutron and density logs.

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30 September - 4 October 2013, Pau, France
The zonation and correlation was made of the 20 distinguished zones using Interactive Petrophysics
(Senergy software). Figure 2 represents the inclination of the layers, in average the difference between
each layer’s top and bottom deviates 59 m and the distance between well 3 and 5 is 1847 m. The
denotations of layers represents different lithological characteristics, zone A to G depending on the
well, they contain claystones with anhydrites and dolomitic limestones, zones “H” are different layers
of halite, zones “C” are claystone, “U” is the Upper Bunter Sandstone formation, “SX” targeted zone
and is the Lower Bunter Sandstone formation and “BC” before becoming claystone or beginning of
Shale formation. Layers from zone “A” to “C6” have an inclination of 1.8 ° from well 3 to well 5.

The petrophysical evaluation of the total porosity, permeability, clay volume and effective porosity
was carried out for the target zone (SX) using core and logging data. These parameters are
summarized in table 1 and figure 4, were it is possible to observer the values of the Lower Bunter
Sandstone formation, which has been recommended to be the production zone.

Table 1 Results of petrophysical parameters for the targeted zone

The porosity was calculated using Density log. The equation used was found from the core data
plotting density versus porosity as shown in figure 3. The matrix density of 2.79 g/cm3 according to
Schlumberger Chart indicates polyhalite. The calculated porosities varied in the range of 23-30%
indicating good reservoir properties. Effective porosity is greater in well 5 which is located to the
southern wing of the structure. This also indicates that the drilling of the next well should be done in
the direction of the well 5.

The parameter of special concern was permeability because it is a crucial factor to obtain stable brine
productivity and injectivity for the present heating project. When plotting porosity and permeability
using conventional core data, an inverse relationship was observed for the Lower Bunter Sandstone
formation controversially to the expected positive relationship between porosity and permeability as
can be seen in figure 3. The inverse relation could be attributed to the presence of precipitated salt
blocking pore spaces, caverns or fractures. This idea is not far-fetched taking into consideration the
presence of salt dome above the reservoir and the high salt content of the formation water. Equations
were introduced into Interactive Petrophysics to calculate the total porosity, effective porosity and
permeability.

Figure 3 Porosity-permeability inverse relationship

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30 September - 4 October 2013, Pau, France
 Figure 4 illustrates the interpretation of results for the three wells. The first column represents depth in
meters including the zonation. Second column shows in dark green, values of total porosity, light
green is effective porosity, black dots are core samples values and blue recalculated values and the
range showed is from 35 % to 15 %. The third column represents permeability, the black curve is the
standard method of calculating permeability in Interactive Petrophysics (using constants, porosity and
irreducible water saturation), and the yellow, orange and grey curves are equations related to core
samples values and their porosity-permeability relationship from 100 mD to 2000 mD. It has to be
understood that the equation generated for permeability calculations was from only core samples in
well 3; in other wells the equation did not match core sample values. The fourth column represents
clay volume content from 100 % to 0 % and the red line is the calculated temperature gradient.
The inverse porosity-permeability relation provides close match of the core and log derived porosity
for well 5; while the positive ratio was used for calculation of permeability for the wells 3 and 4.

Figure 4 Correlation of the Lower Bunter Sandstone with key geophysical parameters

Conclusions
The salt precipitation or fractures might have occurred in the top of the structure where well 3 is
situated as can be confirmed by the washout from inclination analysis, inverse porosity-permeability
relation and lower effective porosities. It can be concluded that further away from the top of the
anticline, the permeability and porosity increases, north from well 3 porosity and permeability seem to
decrease compared to the southern part of the anticline. The high values of porosity and permeability
show that the flow characteristics are favourable for the development of the Tønder project.

Sustainable Earth Sciences 2013

30 September - 4 October 2013, Pau, France

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