Experimental and Modelling Study of the Dry-out during CO2 SC Injection in Reservoir Rock from the Hontomín Site (Spain)

The dry-out effect due to the dissolution of brine in CO2sc has been identified experimentally using samples from the reservoir formations at the Hontomín site. Injection of CO2 in this site is planned in 2013 in the frame of the OXYCFB300 EC-funded project. Samples from the Arcera Fm. have been selected for the experiments, and filled with NaCl-type brine. After 3 hours of injection of supercritical CO2 at 120 bar and 80 ºC, precipitation of halite is triggered leading due to dissolution of brine into CO2. This leads to permeability reduction in the first centimetres from the injection point. These experimental results have been reproduced in a reactive transport simulations using TOUGHREACT.