Abstract
The directional flow properties of a reservoir are very important for the design of reservoir development and waterflooding. For a reservoir with natural fractures, the permeability is controlled by the preferred orientation of the fractures. This paper presents the results of an investigation for determining the fracture orientation from interference tests. The pressure response is analyzed based on the double porosity model proposed by Warren and Root. The calculations are performed numerically by use of Stephest Laplace inversion transform. The results show that the transition flow period depends not only on the fracture flow parameters, but also on the distance between the observation well and the active well. Based on this characteristic, a new method is presented to determine the fracture orientation and permeability components as well as the fracture-flowing parameters.