Strategies for Storage Permanence: Well Integrity and Legacy Well Evaluations
The 45Q tax credit and other incentive programs are generating significant interest in developing commercial carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in the PCOR Partnership region. Site selection plays a vital role for project developers to be able to demonstrate storage permanence and ultimately satisfy the accounting requirements for the 45Q tax credit and other incentive programs. A key strategy for ensuring storage permanence is to understand project risks and likelihood of CO2 escaping the storage reservoir along leakage pathways. Legacy wells within the area of review (AOR) need to be identified, located, and evaluated to ensure integrity of the storage complex has not been compromised. An understanding of wellbore integrity in relation to CCS project development will assist CCS project operators in their project feasibility investigations. A project risk assessment evaluates and ranks wells that are subject to remediation and/or monitoring. Evaluation of wells can be intensive and site-specific, and well records (well files) can have varying levels of available information. The threshold for selecting wells for remediation may vary by project or location. State or provincial regulations may dictate what remediation actions are necessary. A knowledge of relevant regulations, approaches to well evaluation, and remediation considerations and strategies for wellbores are essential to making informed decisions about project location selection and design.View/Download Document