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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

Environmental Geosciences (DEG)

Abstract

Environmental Geosciences, V. 19, No. 2 (June 2012), PP. 63 –74.

Copyright copy2012. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists/Division of Environmental Geosciences. All rights reserved.

DOI:10.1306/eg.12291111011

Use of natural-gas compositional tracers to investigate gas migration from a gas storage field

Tarek Saba,1 Paul D. Boehm2

1Exponent, Inc., 1 Clock Tower Place, Suite 150, Maynard, Massachusetts; [email protected]
2Exponent, Inc., 1 Clock Tower Place, Suite 150, Maynard, Massachusetts

AUTHORS

Dr. Tarek Saba is a senior manager at the Environmental Sciences Practice of Exponent. He provides consulting and expert support to clients in matters involving chemical forensics, geochemistry, and hydrogeology. Dr. Saba has been involved in matters including natural gas migration, hydraulic fracturing, natural resource damage assessments, and Superfund (or Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act) liability, and remedial cost recovery claims at manufactured gas plants. Dr. Saba earned a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and worked on groundwater remediation technology development for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency before starting his consulting practice.

Dr. Paul D. Boehm has overall responsibility for the Environmental business of Exponent. During 34 years of consulting, he has advised industrial, legal, and government clients on scientific matters involving many aspects of environmental, analytical, and forensic chemistry as well as petroleum chemistry and natural-gas geochemistry. He is a leading practitioner and a recognized expert in the fields of environmental (chemical) forensics as applied to site and sediment investigations; and natural-resource damage assessments for oil spills and contaminated sites. Many of his projects involve aspects of historical reconstruction of chemical releases; chemical fingerprinting; divisibility and apportionment; and chemical exposure and injury assessment. His extensive knowledge of the strategic application and practice of environmental forensics has been applied to numerous cases involving complex environmental liability and litigation matters at petroleum operations and manufactured gas plant sites.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank Northern Natural Gas.

ABSTRACT

Producers adjacent to a natural-gas storage field claimed that the natural gas they were producing was native gas from the area and not storage gas being pulled from the nearby gas storage field. The objective of this work is to apply a combination of area-specific and generic geochemical fingerprinting techniques to determine the source(s) of the natural gas being produced by third-party producers outside the gas storage field and to determine the extent of storage gas migration beyond geologic faults that lie between the production area and the gas storage field. An extensive set of natural-gas samples from the storage field, observation wells around the field, and third-party wells was analyzed for gas hydrocarbon and nonhydrocarbon compositions, as well as stable carbon isotopic compositions of methane and ethane. Gas chemical compositional data, including concentrations of the natural native gas tracer, helium, and ethane carbon isotope, were used to establish the unique fingerprints of native gas and storage gases (end-member sources) and to compare those end-member-source fingerprints to those of natural gas in the third-party wells. The analysis determined that gas in both the observation wells and third-party wells was, in fact, storage gas.

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