Industrial Projects

QCCSRC Project

QCCSRC is a 10 year, $70m research programme funded by Qatar Petroleum, Shell and Qatar Science and Technology Park.  It is the largest industry-funded research programme at Imperial and aims to provide the underpinning science and engineering to enable the optimised design and operation of large-scale (>1m te pa) carbon dioxide storage operations in carbonate reservoirs typically found in Qatar and other parts of the Middle East (and elsewhere – about 50% of oil and gas reservoirs worldwide are carbonates).  The activity is a close collaboration between the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Earth Science and Engineering and involves the close interplay of experimental and theoretical/numerical modelling research.  Molecular Systems Engineering and Multiscale Modelling are a key part of this activity.

The experimental work involves characterisation of the rocks, the properties of reservoir fluids mixed with supercritical CO₂ and the multiphase flow of such fluids in the porous and fractured carbonate rocks.  Particular challenges with carbonates (compared with say sandstone reservoirs found in the North Sea) are that their pore structure is very complex, ranging from nm to mm, and they are reactive to acidic CO₂, causing the porous matrix to evolve with time during reactive flow.  Imaging using X-ray micro-tomography and modified body-scanners plays a major role in this.  The modelling work comprises prediction of the thermophysical properties (phase behaviour, interfacial properties, transport properties) of the fluids involved under high temperature-pressure reservoir conditions – Molecular Systems Engineering plays a major role here and is transforming our ability to predict accurately the way complex fluid mixtures behave under such extreme conditions.  These models feed into simulations of multiphase fluid flow in the storage rocks on a wide range of length-scales, from the pore scale (pore network models and Lattice Boltzmann) through core and metre block scales up to the kilometre distances of CO₂ plume development at the reservoir scale.  Combined together, the experimental and modelling work in the programme provide an integrated multi-scale approach, linking the molecular and pore length-scales to the behaviour of bulk fluids on reservoir length-scales. Once robust reservoir models are developed, the challenge will be to use systems engineering approaches to aid in the design, optimisation, monitoring and control of these complex operations.