ジオメカニクスが結ぶ石油開発とカーボンニュートラル社会

抄録

Oil and natural gas yet provide main supply of the energy that is essential for sustaining economic and social activities. On the other hand, CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels are viewed as a problem in light of the circumstances where the reduction of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is urgently required as a countermeasure against climate change. Petroleum exploration and production companies are required to achieve simultaneously both a stable supply of oil and natural gas and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and to reduce their net CO₂ emissions to zero. This paper describes the importance of geomechanics, the technical discipline for handling the deformation and failure of geological formations, associated with both oil development and carbon neutral technologies. Geomechanics has made significant technological progress during the unconventional resource development since the beginning of the 2000s, contributing to the stable supply of energy. In the 2020s, as the world moves toward the realization of a carbon-neutral society, the application of geomechanics will expand from the field of oil development to fields such as geothermal energy development and CCS, building a bridge to the carbon-neutral society. A workflow using geomechanical models for systematic and quantitative investigation on geomechanical issues is also presented, and the development of key techniques necessary for carrying out the workflow including practical geomechanical model construction, coupled fluid flow and geomechanical modeling, and long-term continuous monitoring is introduced in this paper.