Product Summary

Monitoring, Verification, and Accounting (MVA) Strategies: A Plains CO₂ Reduction (PCOR) Partnership Regional Perspective

Implementing carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technology offers a practical solution to reduce carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from large industrial sources while meeting the rise in demand for low-carbon-intensity energy and products. Monitoring, verification, and accounting (MVA) practices play a critical role in CCUS by providing assurance to all stakeholders, including project operators, regulators, incentive program administrators, governments, and the public, that injected CO₂ volumes are safely and permanently stored in the subsurface. The U.S. Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory (2017) uses the term MVA to broadly refer to all activities related to measurement, monitoring, verification, accounting, and reporting. Alternatives, such as MRV (measurement, reporting, and verification), MRV (monitoring, reporting, and verification), MMV (measurement, monitoring, and verification), stress either the legal accounting and reporting practices or the more technical aspects of a strategic plan (i.e., measurement, monitoring, and verification). MVA strategies are designed to 1) monitor preinjection, injection, and postinjection conditions; 2) verify containment of CO₂ in the storage reservoir; and 3) account for CO₂ volumes stored in the subsurface and any out-of-zone migration. Choosing the appropriate MVA practices (i.e., defining the tools/equipment and their design, cost, testing frequency and duration, and target area) is dependent on many factors, including the scope of the project (e.g., utilization and storage vs. dedicated storage), funding, technology available, industry standards, regulations and incentive program requirements (and their interpretation), site-specific conditions (e.g., geology, CO₂ stream composition, surface facilities and wellbore designs, and land use), and operator preference. In general, a verification strategy is preferred over a monitoring strategy because verification provides more actionable information. When developing MVA strategies, project managers should consider the appropriate policy framework requirements, what information/data gathering is important to project stakeholders, and what can help to ensure project operability. The purpose of this report is to present the history of MVA strategies and practices implemented in CCUS projects throughout the Plains CO₂ Reduction (PCOR) Partnership region to date. The objectives of this report are to highlight the history and application of novel MVA approaches and point to future advancements in MVA. The PCOR Partnership has nearly 20 years of experience in CCUS research and development. The first phase (Phase I) activities focused on identifying and characterizing CO₂ sources and sinks throughout the PCOR Partnership region. In Phase II, hundreds to thousands of metric tons of CO₂ were injected into various CO₂ enhanced oil recovery (CO₂ EOR) fields and subsequently monitored with a variety of MVA tools, including wellbore pressure-temperature gauges, near-surface sampling of groundwater and soil gas, time-lapse vertical seismic profiles (VSPs), and crosswell seismic. The general approach was to maximize the utility of existing data sets while minimizing the data collected beyond that which were part of normal field operations. The geophysical methods implemented in Phase II produced limited results for verifying containment in storage reservoirs, which was mainly attributed to the low volumes of CO₂ injected in the pilot (field test) programs. In Phase III of the PCOR Partnership Program, field demonstrations injected more than 1 million metric tons of CO₂ and tested a wide variety of MVA methods using technology adopted from the oil field. The focus of MVA in Phase III was to deploy geophysics-based tools that were capable of imaging the CO₂ plume in the storage reservoir to verify containment, including time-lapse 2D/3D seismic, electromagnetic, and gravity survey techniques. Phase III projects incorporated more robust geologic models and simulations and risk assessments to inform the MVA strategy. Novel methods for sampling and monitoring reservoir fluids, testing isotopes for source attribution, and analysis of elastic seismic waves were also developed during Phase III activities. After Phase III, the PCOR Partnership Program entered a new phase focused on commercial deployment and introduced the first wave of commercial CCS projects in North Dakota. Four storage facility permits are either approved or currently under consideration for approval by the state regulator. Overall, the MVA practices adopted by these North Dakota CCS projects were sourced from Phase II and III activities. The application of novel MVA strategies is guided by site-specific conditions and project manager preference. The overall MVA strategy should stay the same across all CCS projects, whether in conventional vs. unconventional or single vs. stacked storage reservoirs. Differences arise in MVA practices as site-specific conditions, technological advances, and project manager preference warrant. The International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme (IEAGHG) Weyburn-Midale Storage and Monitoring Project and the Shell Quest CCS Project are two other CCUS projects that fall within the PCOR Partnership region. Both projects have been important test sites for demonstrating novel MVA practices, such as atmospheric monitoring with Eddy Covariance and line-of-sight laser-based gas analyzers as well as vegetative monitoring via remote sensing. m to be headed toward more continuous, real-time data gathering and processing to provide project operators with the ability to collect data on-demand and allow for faster decision-making based on actionable evidence. Reference U.S. Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory, 2017, Best practices - Monitoring, verification, and accounting (MVA) for geologic storage projects: DOE/NETL-2017/1847.