Prospects for Assessing Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) Basement Rock Flow Stimulation by Wellbore Temperature Data

Abstract

We use Matlab 3D finite element fluid flow/transport modelling to simulate localized wellbore temperature events of order 0.05–0.1 °C logged in Fennoscandia basement rock at ~1.5 km depths. The temperature events are approximated as steady-state heat transport due to fluid draining from the crust into the wellbore via naturally occurring fracture-connectivity structures. Flow simulation is based on the empirics of spatially-correlated fracture-connectivity fluid flow widely attested by well-log, well-core, and well-production data. Matching model wellbore-centric radial temperature profiles to a 2D analytic expression for steady-state radial heat transport with Peclet number Pe ≡ r0φv0/D (r0 = wellbore radius, v0 = Darcy velocity at r0, φ = ambient porosity, D = rock-water thermal diffusivity), gives Pe ~ 10–15 for fracture-connectivity flow intersecting the well, and Pe ~ 0 for ambient crust. Darcy flow for model Pe ~ 10 at radius ~10 m from the wellbore gives permeability estimate κ ~ 0.02 Darcy for flow driven by differential fluid pressure between least principal crustal stress pore pressure and hydrostatic wellbore pressure. Model temperature event flow permeability κm ~ 0.02 Darcy is related to well-core ambient permeability κ ~ 1 µDarcy by empirical poroperm relation κm ~ κ exp(αmφ) for φ ~ 0.01 and αm ~ 1000. Our modelling of OTN1 wellbore temperature events helps assess the prospect of reactivating fossilized fracture-connectivity flow for EGS permeability stimulation of basement rock.

Keywords

• enhanced geothermal systems (EGS)
• crustal permeability
• finite element flow modelling
• crustal wellbore temperatures
• wellbore injection
• well logs
• well core