Pulse testing, as a practical method of reservoir analysis, was introduced into petroleum engineering literature by Johnson et al. in 1966. Since then, several authors have discussed, expanded on, or applied some of the basic concepts of horizontal pulse testing. Pulse testing as originally formulated by Johnson et al. can provide two pieces of information from which the reservoir transmissibility (T = krh/μ) and storage (S = Φcth) can be obtained. It does not address itself to the problem of evaluating the in-situ vertical permeability, which is important in reservoir processes where there is appreciable vertical flow.
It has been recognized that vertical interference testing has considerable promise for simultaneous evaluation of the horizontal and vertical permeability; however, no one has considered the use of multipulse tests and the Johnson gradient method for this purpose. This is despite the inherent advantages of multipulse testing over the other techniques.
The objective of this paper is twofold:
to examine the behavior of multipulse pressure transients in a vertically pulsed slab reservoir, noting the effect of the finite characteristics of the reservoir, and
to generate correlation curves, based on known pressure response characteristics, for interpreting dynamic data from pulse-tested reservoirs.
