Recent Advances in Satellite Monitoring of Injection and Withdrawal Projects - The Role of InSAR

Reservoir monitoring improves our understanding of reservoir behavior and helps achieve more effective reservoir management and prediction of future performance with obvious economic benefits. Volumetric changes in reservoirs due to fluid extraction and injection can induce either subsidence or uplift which can trigger fault reactivation and threaten well integrity (as well as reservoir structural integrity). Depending on the depth of the reservoir and the characteristic of the cap rock, deformation may also be detectable at the surface. Surface deformation monitoring can provide valuable constraints on the dynamic behavior of a reservoir enabling the evaluation of volumetric changes in the reservoir through time, allowing the calibration of geo-mechanical models. Whatever the surveying technique, the detection of millimeter level surface deformation is required to monitor small surface displacement rates, which could impact risk evaluation and environmental impact assessment in oil&gas operations, as well as in geothermal plants.