Updated: 08 May 2013

Groundwater Monitoring at the Otway Project Site, Australia

Catalogue Number :	72933
Release Date :	30 September 2011
Senior Author :	Hortle, A.
Product Type :	External Publication–Scientific Journal Paper
Medium :	WEB
Theme(s) :	carbon dioxide

Abstract :	The Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC) Otway Project in the onshore Otway Basin, Victoria, is Australia's first pilot project for the long term sequestration of CO2. The Otway Project has injected 65,445 tonnes of a mixed CO2-CH4 supercritical fluid (77 mol% CO2, 20 mol% CH4, 3 mol% of minor wet gases and N2) some 2000 m below the surface into the Waarre Formation, which is capped by the Belfast Mudstone regional seal. The site has been comprehensively characterised by a multidisciplinary team and the risk analysis has shown the likelihood of leakage out of the injection horizon, let alone to the land surface, to be exceedingly low. Nevertheless, the objectives of the CO2CRC through the Otway Project are not only to demonstrate safe CO2 injection, but also to develop new methodologies for monitoring and verification (M&V) of carbon storage that might apply to future commercial scale injection. At Otway, this involves M&V at the reservoir level and Assurance Monitoring, in the shallow subsurface (aquifers and soils) and the atmosphere. The groundwater monitoring system represents the most comprehensive system for monitoring freshwater in the vicinity of a CO2 storage demonstration to date. Monitoring the groundwater is of particular significance in demonstrating the ongoing integrity of natural resources to the general community.
Spatial Extent :	N LAT: -36.75 W LONG: 138.25 S LAT: -40.75 E LONG: 145.25

Resources :	View the online abstract in Energy Procedia Vol: 4, 2011, pp. 5495-5503

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