Integrated Monitoring of China’s Yanchang CO2-EOR Demonstration Project in Ordos Basin

Conforming to the development of the carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) in China, it has the necessity and possibility of launching several large-scale CCUS demonstration projects. The Ordos Basin is one of the greatest opportunity target areas for CCUS demonstration opportunities in China. As facing severe water shortage, carbon dioxide (CO2) enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) is a helpless option in the coming large-scale development process of Yanchang Oilfield, the Ordos Basin, China. As a shining model of the CCUS, the CO2-EOR is attracting much more attention in China than before. However, the leakage risk of sequestered CO2 drives the necessity in monitoring of the CCUS process in practice. The aim of our research is to develop an integrated monitoring scheme and to identify related key monitoring indicators for CO2-EOR Demonstration Project at Yanchang Oilfield. In this paper, the detailed monitoring plan was tailored for the Jingbian CO2-EOR Block at the Yanchang Oilfield according to the existing situation of monitoring technologies and project planning in China. The principles and suggestion was finally proposed for the selection of key monitoring indicators for a long-term CO2-EOR activity in the Ordos Basin.