INVESTIGATING RELATIVE PERMEABILITY HYSTERSIS AND LAND’S PARAMETER IN CO2 AND H2 SUBSURFACE STORAGE

Abstract

Water-Alternating-Gas (WAG) injection, geological CO₂ sequestration, and underground hydrogen storage (UHS) are governed by cyclic multiphase flow behavior in porous media, where relative permeability hysteresis plays a central role in controlling gas migration, trapping efficiency, and overall storage performance. In this work, hysteresis effects are examined through the implementation of Land’s trapping parameter within numerical reservoir simulations. Two reservoir models are used the SPE 10 Model 2, used to assess hysteresis sensitivity under WAG injection to study the effects of land parameter, and a modified PUNQ-S3 model applied to CO₂ sequestration and hydrogen storage conditions. Land’s parameter (C) is systematically varied between 0.1 and 10 to evaluate its influence on gas trapping behavior and flow dynamics. The simulations indicate that small C values lead to pronounced residual gas trapping and sharply curved imbibition relative permeability functions, whereas larger values of C reduce residual saturation and produce smoother imbibition trends, which improve numerical stability. In CO₂ storage simulations, neglecting hysteresis results in weak trapping and a highly mobile CO₂ plume, implying elevated leakage potential. When hysteresis is included, a significant fraction of the injected CO₂ becomes immobilized through residual trapping, thereby increasing storage security. Under WAG operation, hysteresis enhances trapping efficiency relative to continuous gas injection, as reflected by higher and more stable Field Gas Trapping Ratios (FGTRP). For UHS applications, hysteresis induces progressive residual hydrogen trapping during imbibition phases, leading to reduced gas mobility and declining production performance with repeated cycles. Compared to the non-hysteretic case, the hysteretic scenario shows a 25.9% decrease in ultimate hydrogen recovery, together with increased cumulative water production. Overall, the results demonstrate that ignoring hysteresis leads to overestimation of recoverable gas volumes and that explicit representation of relative permeability hysteresis and Land’s trapping behavior is critical for realistic prediction of CO₂ sequestration and underground hydrogen storage performance.

Date of Award	2026
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	HBKU College of Science and Engineering