Selection Criteria for Repurposing Oil And Gas Well to Geothermal Heat Extraction

Abstract Oil and gas wells are generally plugged and abandoned when they reach the end of their economic life. Thus repurposing these wells to harness the geothermal energy was supported as a way to reduce the abandonment expenses for the operators and cheaper access to the deeper formation with high temperatures for a geothermal operator. Oil and gas wells are drilled in different fields with different reservoir properties and well completion. This work is a numerical modeling study to understand the effect of rock properties (reservoir temperature, thickness, permeability, and porosity) on the power generation capacity. This study combines the two major challenges of injectivity and energy production as a ratio to define the major reservoir properties for optimum geothermal system circulation. This work also investigates the different oil and gas well completion (number of casings and their associated depth) on the heat losses in the wellbore for different circulation rates This work can serve as a roadmap for screening wells within a field for better geothermal energy production.

Selection Criteria for Repurposing Oil And Gas Well to Geothermal Heat Extraction Conference Paper