Wells – Processes – Specific pattern of plural wells
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-12
2003-09-16
Dang, Hoang (Department: 3672)
Wells
Processes
Specific pattern of plural wells
C073S152010, C166S250160
Reexamination Certificate
active
06619393
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to a method of finding the location of fossil fuel producing oil wells. More particularly, the present invention relates to system and method of mathematically generating a distribution of points from two know well locations. The distribution is then employed in locating additional producing fossil fuel wells.
2. Description of the Related Art
Presently, there are many oil or natural gas producing fields located around the world. Each of these fields includes a number of producing wells that generate a fossil fuel such as oil or natural gas. The wells are distributed over the area of a given field in what appears to be a haphazard manner.
Each well position is originally located and selected for drilling by searching for oil and natural gas utilizing a number of different methods. One method is to simply look for ground seepage wherein oil or natural gas escapes from the earth through the ground into the atmosphere. Oil seepage can be located by visual inspection. Gas seepage can be traced by sensitive equipment that measures the presence or absence of natural gas in the atmosphere. These methods are known as surface methods. Another method is known as either gravity or magnetic survey wherein small changes in the electromagnetic field or gravitational force of the earth at a given area are measured relative to the surrounding areas. These small changes indicate underground formations that may be conducive to oil or natural gas reservoirs. A third method is commonly known as seismographic exploration that can be utilized to detect smaller and less obvious rock formations and underground traps that can include reservoirs of oil or natural gas that are otherwise not discoverable by the previous less sophisticated methods. Seismic surveying utilizes sound transmitted through the ground to indicate less obvious underground formations that can be conducive to oil or natural gas reservoirs. This procedure is repeated over wide areas to determine the possible locations of pockets or reservoirs of oil and/or natural gas.
Heretofore, there has been no method known to somehow relate the positions of known oil wells to the positions of unknown oil wells. There is further no presently known method of relating existing oil well positions within a given field for determining prime locations to drill additional oil wells in the field without resorting to the sophisticated, costly and time consuming methods of locating new well sites.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method of finding the geographic location of one or more producing wells on the basis of the location of two other known producing wells. In the first step of the method, first and second producing wells and designated, with the location of such wells being defined an x-y coordinate system.
Next, the distance X between the two wells is computed in accordance with the following equation:
X
=(
x
1
−x
0
)
2
+(
y
1
−y
0
)
2
Thereafter, a smaller distance Y is computed in accordance with the following equation:
Y
2
+XY−X
2
=0
Designating the distance Y from the first, or origin well, as segment A, a growing sequence of segments A
n
can be computed in accordance with the equation:
A
n
=Ae
&thgr; cot &agr;
(wherein &thgr; is incrementally varied by a number of degrees in radians and wherein cot &agr; is a fixed value).
In the next step of the method, a sequence B
n
of segments is computed which corresponds to the sequence A
n
in accordance with the equation
A
n
2
+A
n
B
n
−B
n
2
=0
Finally, the intersection between the sequence of segments A
n
and B
n
are located. The points that define these intersections define a trap slice upon which producing wells can be located.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent upon a review of the written description and accompanying drawings.
REFERENCES:
patent: 1872906 (1932-08-01), Doherty
patent: 3093190 (1963-06-01), Hoyt
patent: 3524346 (1970-08-01), Schmidt
patent: 3921126 (1975-11-01), Waters
patent: 5388456 (1995-02-01), Kettel
Brochure, “ResGram Spatial Data Analysis”, Author and Date unknown.
Brochure, “Wbgeos-Geostatistics for the Reservoir Engineer and Geoscientist”, Scientific Software Intercomp, 1994.
Brochure, No Title, The Andrews Group International, 1997 and including 2 sheets regarding Semi-Variogram program.
Dang Hoang
Holland & Knight LLP
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