Carbon Capture and Storage

Help decarbonise the economy by enabling safe and economical carbon capture and storage both offshore and on land.

Why use
distributed sensing?

What is distributed sensing? 

Find out here 

Silixa has been devoted to help tackle the global challenges of climate change since its inception.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology offers an opportunity to reduce CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. The process consists of capturing CO2 before it enters the atmosphere; transporting the CO2 via pipeline; and injecting it underground into depleted oil and gas fields or deep saline geologic formations, where it can be securely stored.

Carbon dioxide is injected using dedicated wells in deep geologic formations for long-term storage.  These wells require extensive subsurface characterization, including observations from previously drilled boreholes and indirect data from geophysical methods.

The main risks associated with CCS

Problems with well cementation can cause leakage of CO2 upward to shallow aquifers or the surface.
This could eventually lead to CO2 leakage to shallow aquifers and the atmosphere.
It is important to track the free-phase CO2 plume distribution during CO2 injection to ensure it is confined to the permitted storage interval and, after injection operations have ceased, to provide assurance that the plume has stabilised.

Although extensive characterisation and planning for Class VI wells are undertaken, injecting large volumes of CO2 can create fractures and/or activate preexisting geological faults generating microseismic and seismic events. 

Continuous monitoring is important because these events can be informative and a precursor to potential leakage pathways and/or damage to infrastructure.

CO2 injection could lead to a significant surface heave due to the pressure buildup in the reservoir and the buildup of injected CO2.

The mitigation of risks involved with CO2 storage underground is possible with detailed site characterisation and advanced monitoring before, during, and after the injection period.

Fibre optic distributed sensing methods can greatly advance the spatial and temporal resolution of the data acquired during the characterisation and monitoring phases, while reducing overall monitoring costs when compared to standard methods using point transducers such as geophones, temperature, and pressure gauges.

Deployment of fibre optic sensing has a minimal environmental impact and provides large spatial coverage with no power requirements along the sensing cable.

We would like to hear from you

Our dedicated team, with sector-matched expertise and highly diverse skillsets, provide solutions that deliver measurable value to our clients in the Industrial Digitalisation sector.

Michael Mondanos, PhD
Vice President
Environmental and Infrastructure

Thomas Coleman
General Manager
E&I North America