Interference testing although primitive in terms of its introduction and idea to the petroleum industry, still stands to this day as one of the most cost effective and efficient ways of establishing communication between wells and determining the reservoir transmissibility in the region.

This paper discusses the methodology and results obtained from a four month pressure data acquisition campaign for a transient interference test performed in a carbonate reservoir known as Marrat, in the Giant Burgan field of Kuwait.

The Marrat long term interference test was conducted around a water injector pilot with distances as far as 0.9 km at the subsurface locations between the injector and producer wells. Therefore, the interference test was used to evaluate the transmissibility between the injector and the nearby observation wells. The producer wells were shut-in for the entire length of the test so as not to create any disturbances that could hinder the interpretation processes. After conducting this test, a better understanding of the subsurface uncertainty as well as communication between the wells was highlighted. Other objectives were added to the tests which were to determine the water bank distance from the injector, as well as to describe the least resistive path that the water prefers to travel in.

The tests showed that not all the wells responded to the pressure pulse, and therefore the assumption that a fault was isolating one of the wells. One of the main conclusions was a strong directional transmissibility that was at first associated with a high permeability corridor corresponding to the depositional environment. The other conclusion was the orientation of the fracture plane which could cause this high directional transmissibility. A comparison and integration of the acquired pressure data with a separate geologic stochastic model was constructed and discussed in this paper.

Based on the integration work of the interference test and the geologic study it was therefore concluded that a secondary recovery using water flooding would be beneficial and necessary for sustaining Marrat reservoir production in the long term based on the location of both producer and injector wells.

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