Risk assessment of CO₂ injection processes and storage

Different options for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technologies exist and have been or are in the process of being implemented worldwide. With recent technological advancements, large scale CCUS schemes have become economically viable particularly when the captured CO₂ is used in the enhancement of oil (EOR) or gas (EGR) recovery, or when government incentives such as carbon credits are in place. CO₂ can also be stored in coal beds, in unminable coal seams and well-sealed abandoned coal mines. In this chapter, the risks associated with CO₂ storage are described by identifying and examining different types of hazards. The importance of modeling and monitoring is emphasized and different methodologies to assess risk are discussed. There are a number of models available for data analysis, representation and risk analysis. Bayesian networks (BN) are described in detail, and some applications of BNs in CO₂ injection and storage are presented for different hazard scenarios. Finally, several conclusions are drawn.