Investigation of the Rotokawa Geothermal System and Feasibility of Supercritical Fluid Production within the TVZ through Supercritical TOUGH2 Numerical Modeling.

Abstract

A single fault process model was created to test the sensitivity of each TOUGH2 rock parameter on the convection flow rate and fluid enthalpy within a simulated fault. With a fixed temperature base the single fault process model found a negative correlation with the fault permeability and convection fluid enthalpy and a positive liner increases in mass flow with fault area. Next a large scale Supercritical TOUGH2 model was built to simulate the entire Rotokawa geothermal system incorporating findings of the fault process model. The single porosity model 20 x 10 x 6km with 20 layers and 57,600 grid blocks. Unlike previous models of the Rotokawa reservoir and larger scale TVZ numerical models a fixed temperature base with a no flow boundary was used to represent the brittle ductile transition. The model permeability below the currently explored reservoir was bounded by 3-D magnetologic data. Lower resistivity zones were given higher bulk permeability in the model. The model resulted in a comparable temperature and pressure match to the Rotokawa natural state conditions. Convection of supercritical fluid reached depths shallower than -4500mRL but only occurred in zones with a bulk vertical permeability less than 2 mD. Further modelling work with a supercritical wellbore coupled reservoir model will be need to evaluate the potential deliverability of a super critical well from the Rotokawa geothermal system.