Page 296 - Standard Handbook Petroleum Natural Gas Engineering VOLUME2

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Flgure 5-148. Well locations for 40-acre spacing.

Injection Well Placement
Wells may be spaced evenly or unevenly from each other baaed on surface
topology, lease boundaries, regulations, or other factors. Many older fields were
developed on irregular spacing. In more recent times, more uniform drilling
patterns and well spacing have been used.
In most cases when an injection project is started, primary recovery has been
implemented and producing wells will already be in place. For some projects, a
number of existing wells will be converted from producers to injectors, and in
other cases, new injection wells will be drilled. In either event, the injection
well placement must be compatible with the existing wells and should [133]: (1)
take advantage of known reservoir uniformities or nonuniformities (fractures,
directional permeability, regional permeabilities, dip, etc.), (2) provide sufficient
fluid injection rate to yield the desired production rate, (3) maximize recovery
with a minimum of production of the injected fluid, and (4) in most cases,
require a minimum of new wells. Two general types of well locations are