Assessing Leak Paths in the Cement Sheath of a Cased Borehole by Analysis of Monopole Wavefield Modes

Evaluation of possible leakage pathways of CO_(2) injected into geological formations for storage is essential for successful Carbon Capture and Storage(CCS).A channel in the borehole cement,which secures the borehole casing to the formation,may allow CO_(2) to escape.Risk assessment and remediation decisions about the pres-ence of such channels depend on channel parameters:radial position r from the center of the borehole;channel thickness d;azimuthal positionφof the channel;and az-imuthal extentθof the channel.Current state-of-the-art cement-bond logging technology,which uses only the first arrival at a centralized borehole receiver,can diagnose limited details about CO_(2) leak channels.To accurately characterize the possible leak paths in the cement,we use a 3-dimensional finite-difference method to investigate the use of the abundant data collected by a modernized monopole sonic tool that contains an array of azimuthally distributed receivers.We also investigate how to improve the tool design to acquire even more useful information.For cases where borehole fluid is either water or supercritical CO_(2),we investigate various receiver geometries,multi-modal analyses of multi-frequency data to discover the type of logging tool that provides the best information for CCS management.We find that an appropriate choice of wave modes,source frequencies,source polarities,and receiver locations and off-sets provides sensitivity to d,φ,θ.The amplitude of the first arrival from a monopole source is sensitive toθ.Amplitudes at receivers at different azimuths are sensitive toφ.The slow Stoneley mode(ST2)velocity is sensitive to d,but ST2 is not easy to pick whenθand d are small.Further improvement is necessary to provide comprehensive information about possible flow channels in casing cement.