Baseline characterization of the CO2SINK geological storage site at Ketzin, Germany

Since April 2004, preparatory work prior to CO2 injection has been conducted in the CO2SINK Project, the European Union's first research and development activity on the in-situ testing of geological storage of CO2 near the town of Ketzin, Germany. Carbon dioxide will be injected into a saline aquifer of the Triassic Stuttgart Formation in an anticlinal structure of the northeast German Basin. The drilling of one injection and two observation wells will commence at the end of 2006. The predrilling phase focuses on the baseline geological parameters of the anticline. The Stuttgart Formation is lithologically heterogeneous; it consists of sandy channel-(string)-facies rocks, with good reservoir properties alternating with muddy flood-plain-facies rocks of poor reservoir quality. Playa-type rocks form the immediate cap rock above the CO2SINK reservoir. A geostatistical approach has been applied to describe the reservoir architecture between and beyond well control. This model forms the basis for the generation of reservoir-dynamic models of CO2 injection that assist in the planning of injection operations and in the understanding of CO2 plume evolution. A verification of the geometry of the reservoir and the structural situation of its overburden is expected from a three-dimensional baseline seismic survey that was conducted in the autumn of 2005. Laboratory experiments under simulated in-situ conditions were performed to evaluate the geophysical signature of rocks saturated with CO2. The chemical composition of the groundwater and the CO2 flux in the soil were analyzed across the Ketzin anticline, providing the baseline for a monitoring program during and after injection of CO2, targeted at the detection of potential CO2 leakage from the storage reservoir.