Reservoir performance of the Geysers Field

Abstract

The Geysers Field, located in Northern California, has an installed generating capacity of 502 MWe. Total withdrawal rate is approximately 8-5 million lb/h of steam from 95 wells. Four new generating plants are currently under construction, which will bring the installed capacity to 908 MWe by 1979. The reservoir rock consists of naturally fractured graywacke, a very competent rock with low interstitial porosity and permeability. The reservoir contains dry steam with an initial pressure of approximately 514 psia at sea level datum. Static pressure gradient is that of saturated steam to the total depths of wells drilled to date. The initial development at The Geysers Field occurred in an area which has two shallow dry steam anomalies. Recent studies have shown that the steam in these anomalies is being fed through fractures connecting them with the deeper regional fracture system. Development of the regional system has created two distinct pressure sinks. The larger of the two pressure sinks is in the oldest and most developed portion of the field. This sink has grown larger with the addition of new production capacity. There is no pressure interference between the two sinks, but pressure interference between wells in a given pressure sink is very rapid. Pressure behavior at observation wells in these sinks resembles an ideal single-phase system with constant pressure boundaries. The expansion of the field has been the result of continued exploratory drilling and testing of new step-out wells. Based on the successful exploratory wells drilled to date, it is estimated that the generating capacity of The Geysers could reach 1800 MW by the mid-1980s.