Water Testing

With RITE back in onsite at the In Situ Laboratory (ISL) in August, a critical objective for this trip was to initiate a campaign of shallow water injection tests. Water injection tests are commonly used to support the development and the demonstration of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) monitoring systems.

The aim of the August 2024 water testing campaign at the ISL was to confirm the initial observations obtained in March 224 during the drilling of the Harvey 6 well and test a first prototype of injection and monitoring setup at the site. 

The ISL project team was able to inject formation water at multiple occasions and detect its impact in the subsurface through direct measurements of pressure, strain and tilts at different locations. The successful experiments also brought confidence on the ability of the team to perform repeatable tests with near real-time monitoring, to implement data management systems and collect relevant measurements and, to perform the water injection operations.

More importantly, the August 2024 water injection campaign enabled to identify operational gaps and issues ahead of the Harvey 5 drilling and injection campaign. These gaps and issues will be addressed to enable successful the upcoming water and CO2 injection in the Harvey 5 well.