Authors / CoAuthors
Ayling, B.F. | Rose, P.E.
Abstract
Geochemical tracers have been used for many years to improve the understanding of reservoir dynamics in geothermal systems. Tracers can be classified as either conservative or reactive, and can be used in liquid-phase, vapour-phase or two-phase reservoirs at temperatures of 300C or more. They are commonly used to map flow pathways between injection and production wells in a geothermal field, to monitor the effects of reinjection and identify wells that might experience premature thermal breakthrough if left unmanaged. Tracer tests also provide information about reservoir fluid residence time, fluid recharge location or direction, swept pore volumes, inter-well connectivity, temperatures, fracture surface area, flow-storage capacity relationships and volumetric fluid sweep efficiencies. In addition, tracer data can be used with numerical transport codes to help validate 2D or 3D reservoir models. Thus, tracer tests can provide powerful insight into geothermal reservoir characteristics, and they can be performed at many stages of project development, from small-scale demonstration projects (e.g. an injection-production well doublet) through to large-scale commercial fields (e.g. Wairakei, New Zealand). New 'smart' tracers have the potential to be used with a single well to evaluate changes in fracture surface area following reservoir stimulation, and thus have applications to both conventional and unconventional (engineered) geothermal projects.
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nonGeographicDataset
eCat Id
77440
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Keywords
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- External PublicationConference Paper
- ( Theme )
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- geothermal
- ( Theme )
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- geochemistry
- ( Theme )
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- fluid reservoirs
- Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)
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- Geochemistry
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- Published_Internal
Publication Date
2013-01-01T00:00:00
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This conference paper is a review of the capabilities and applications of geochemical tracers for geothermal reservoir characterisation.
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No data presented - this is a review paper.