Well Interference

interaction of operating oil, gas, or water wells drilled from the surface to one productive stratum or to two different but hydrodynamically connected strata.

Well interference is caused by the fact that oil, gas, and water are mobile and the pores of the productive strata that contain them are joined into a single system of pore canals and cracks. Thus, wells drawing the same product “hinder” one another by intercepting fluid (or gas) flowing toward them. As a result the yield of each of several operating wells is always less than the yield of a single well, other things being equal. This fact determines a theoretical characteristic of exploiting deposits of liquid (or gaseous) minerals: all operating oil (gas or water) wells are considered in the aggregate only, in their interaction with each other in the overall technological process of being exploited. The laws of well interference are studied by a special science of filtration, underground gas hydrodynamics.