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During the productive life of a reservoir, several possible primary mechanisms can be present. One of the most efficient of these is water influx, which influences the economic viability of a reservoir development and optimization project. The primary objective of managing water influx is to efficiently displace oil and maximize the economic recovery of oil from a reservoir. Water influx increases the amount of oil recovered from a reservoir in two ways: through pressure support and oil displacement by means of water.

Groundwater can migrate through a permeable aquifer in regions when there is a pressure differential established between the outcrop that is accepting water at a higher elevation and the outflow location at a much lower elevation. There have been cases of oil fields located near mountainous areas where the water flow through the associated aquifer was sufficiently strong to tilt the water contact away from the horizontal. Hydrocarbons migrated from the source rock, and because oil and gas are less dense than water, buoyant forces caused them to flow up to shallower depths and become trapped in porous reservoir rock, displacing the original water that saturated the permeable layer. Generally, the lack of quantifying information makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to model this type of aquifer.

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