Depeletion of the elastic reserve of a sealed and fractured formation with anomalously high formation pressure

Abstract

Analysis of the exploitation of deposits with anomalously high formation pressures has shown [1] that when the weighted-mean formation pressure drops below a certain critical value (close to the hydrostatic pressure) a rather sharp sudden fall in output, together with a change in the rate of decline of pressure, is observed. The fall in output is attributable to the closing of the joints and the resulting catastrophic deterioration in the permeability of the reservoir [2]. In this paper an attempt is made to develop a joint closing hypothesis, to calculate the motion of the joint closing front from the bottom of the well to the edge of a homogeneous circular formation, and to derive expressions for predicting the fall in the output of the wells and the pressure in the formation. In order to obtain solutions it is assumed that the reservoir depletion regime is quasisteady, so that the results should be regarded as approximate.