Challenges in Simulation of Salt Clogging

Carbon sequestration in depleted reservoirs or aquifers is highly demanded but still faced with technical challenges in many aspects. Among them, losing well injectivity during the storage process is a major concern. This can be caused by salt deposited in the reservoir, particularly near the injection well, which may sometimes creep into the injection well. Therefore, it is desirable to estimate the amount and distribution of salt precipitation at the injection conditions for a smooth implementation of CO2 sequestration. In this paper, we investigate how much commercial software CMG-GEM can help the evaluation of salt precipitation. We first review the critical mechanisms involved in salt precipitation and then analyze the challenges in simulating these mechanisms.