Building 1D and 3D Mechanical Earth Models for Underground Gas Storage - A Case Study from the Molasse Basin, Southern Germany

Hydromechanical models of gas storage in porous media provide valuable information for various applications ranging from the prediction of ground surface displacements to the determination of maximum reservoir pressure and storage capacity to maintain fault stability and caprock integrity. A workflow to set up such models is presented and applied to a former gas field in southern Germany for which transformation to a gas storage site is considered. The workflow comprises 1D mechanical earth modeling (1D MEM) to calculate elastic properties as well as a first estimate for the vertical and horizontal stresses at well locations by using log data. This information is then used to populate a 3D finite element model (3D MEM) which has been built from seismic data and comprises not only the reservoir but the entire overburden up to the earth’s surface as well as part of the underburden. The size of this model is 30 × 24 × 5 km3. The pore pressure field has been derived from dynamic fluid flow simulation through history matching for the production and subsequent shut-in phase. The validated model is ready to be used for analyzing new wells for future field development and testing arbitrary injection-production schedules, among others.