Meinzer (1928) clearly projected that there will be a reduction of reservoir porosity resulting from the fluid production from the reservoir.
Further, Meinzer (1937) estimated that there will be a significant Land Subsidence following the reduction in reservoir porosity - upon fluid production.
Despite these studies, why are we NOT seriously considering the aspect of LAND SUBSIDENCE associated with the petroleum production?
The concept of "land Subsidence" does NOT come under the umbrella of Oil Production Industry unless there is a serious VISIBLE Environmental Impact. Why is it so?
There has, in fact, been substantial research on reservoir compaction and surface subsidence in oil fields. These two authors in particular may not have been cited, but petroleum engineers and geoscientists that may have used their research rarely publish because of the proprietary nature of their own work.
I think the the oil industry DO consider land subsidence because it affect production facilities and other infrastructure for the oil company themselves. In Oman we did have teams looking at subsidence particularly where the gas reservoirs were relatively near the surface. The Geo-mechanics team and gas team might know more. Also in Trinidad where the reservoirs were shallow and overburden soft. The data may not have been published as mentioned earlier nor earlier work cited but I am sure the principles have been used.
See my paper, Bowersox and Shore (1990), on this site about reservoir compaction and surface subsidence in the South Belridge oil field, California. We we're very much concerned about the subsidence problem. It's one of my most popular publications.
I think there has been a large amount of work done on the physics that leads to compaction (Wong TF, Christian and many others) but the need between offshore and onshore for these type of work is "limited" unless they are specific cases such as those mentioned previously (California, Trinidad, Oman, Venezuela...). Having said that it should become a more integral part of field development as it has a significant impact on productivity and so far it has been driven by the environmental side of field development. I hope it helps
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Engineering
- Petroleum Engineering