Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Science & Technology: Assessing Geopressured-Geothermal Resources in Sedimentary Basin Plays

A Methodology for Assessing the Favourability of Geopressured-Geothermal Systems in Sedimentary Basin Plays: A Case Study in Abruzzo (Italy) (Hindawi)

by Alessandro Santilano, et al

We exploit the concept of the geothermal favourability, widely used for hydrothermal and EGS systems, to present an innovative methodology for assessing geopressured-geothermal resources occurring in terrigenous units in sedimentary basin plays.

Flow diagram of the hybrid power system for the
trigeneration from geopressured-geothermal resources
Geopressured-geothermal systems are an unconventional resource for power trigeneration exploiting three forms of energy from hydrocarbons, hydrothermal fluids, and well-head overpressure.

This paper is intended to be a practical analytical framework for the systematic integration of the relevant data required to assess geopressured-geothermal resources. For this purpose, innovative parameters were also implemented in the methodology. The final result is the favourability map for identifying prospective areas to be further investigated for the appraisal of the geopressured-geothermal potential.

We applied our methodology to the foredeep-foreland domains of the Apennines thrust belt in the Abruzzo region (central Italy). We analysed hundreds of deep hydrocarbon wells in order to create 3D geological and thermo-fluid dynamic models at a regional scale as well as to obtain information on the pressure regimes and on the chemistry of the system.

The final favourability map for the Abruzzo case study is a first attempt at ranking these kinds of unconventional geothermal resources in a region that has been historically explored and exploited mostly for hydrocarbons.

Read More........

Geofluids, Volume 2019, Article ID 4503943, 28 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/4503943