Infill drilling-lessons learnt in the past 20 years Block 1, Forum 5 paper

Infill drilling-lessons learnt in the past 20 years

Linhua Guan, Texas A&M University Yuqi Du, New Mexico Tech Zhiming Wang, Chevron
Abstract: It has been known that infill drilling can improve the recovery of hydrocarbon by accelerating the hydrocarbon productions because most reservoirs in the real world are not homogeneous. With the increasing demand for energy and higher oil and gas prices, more and more fields all over the world are undergoing infill drilling. This paper describes the development of infill drilling in the petroleum industry and summarizes what petroleum engineers have learnt in the past 20 years about infill drilling. Various field examples are discussed on the successfulness and failure of the infill drilling campaigns in the industry. The results of our study indicate that when the reservoirs become more heterogeneous, the infill drilling works better.

Introduction The importance of enhanced oil recovery technology (EOR) cannot be overemphasized, especially in the context of a mature petroleum province or a country, such as the U.S., with declining domestic production and increasing imports. The decline of domestic production and increasing of petroleum imports reminds us of our increasing dependence on foreign petroleum supplies. Combined with the fact that the probability of finding new discoveries is continually decreasing reinforces the need for EOR oil recovery technology. The significance of EOR lies in the promise it holds for increasing the expected production from existing oil fields. In mature petroleum provinces, such as the onshore US in general, growth of reserves in existing oil fields typically contributes more to the industrys continued viability than the discovery of new fields. In other words, in thoroughly explored provinces, better technology, more accurate reservoir characterization, and more effective production from known fields typically add new reserves faster than exploration for new fields. It has been known that infill drilling can improve the recovery of hydrocarbon by accelerating the hydrocarbon productions because most reservoirs in the real world are not homogeneous.1-7 Driscoll1 and Gould et al..2, 4 summarized the various factors that contribute to increased recovery after infill drilling in 1980s: Improved areal sweep Areal heterogeneity Improved vertical sweep Lateral pay connectivity Recovery of wedge-edge oil Reduced economic limits

Recently, with the increasing demand for energy and favourable oil and gas prices, more and more fields all over the world are undergoing infill drilling. The advances in reservoir management provide a much clear picture of hydrocarbon distribution in the reservoirs which helps petroleum engineers to plan highly effective well profiles and the advanced imaging technologies allow the hydrocarbon field operators to select the best locations for infill drilling to optimize well placement. In the past 20+ years, many infill drilling projects have been put into production and lots of valuable experiences have been gained on infill drilling. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to present lessons learned and best practices on infill drilling from published literatures and provides a concise compendium to the current understanding of current industry infill drilling practice.

Infill drilling-lessons learnt in the past 20 years Block 1, Forum 5 paper At the same time, this paper will discuss two recent developed fast techniques which can rapidly determine the infill drilling potentials in mature, tight hydrocarbon basins and present lessons learned on the application guidelines for those two fast methods to help independent operators develop operational and design strategies for current and future infill drilling projects. The scope of this paper is the update of Gould4 and Wus5 reviews on lessons learned of infill drilling in the petroleum industry. Consequently, all the infill drilling cases appear in open literature before 1989 are not included in this paper. It should be noted that most of the reviewed field studies are from SPE and only some of the papers have been peer reviewed. Recent Infill Drilling Field Experience Infill drilling of additional wells after initial development (primary and/or secondary) played an important role in improving the oil and gas recovery in the tight hydrocarbon reservoirs.6 Generally speaking, the reservoir heterogeneity and layer continuity can be changed by the well spacing. The infill drilling wells reduce the well spacing of the hydrocarbon fields and then enhance the well connectivity. Wu, et al.7 reported the results of their study to determine the impact of infill drilling on the waterflood recovery in West Texas carbonate reservoir in 1989. Their study shows a certain degree of correlation between the waterflood recovery and well spacing. During the literature search, we found dozens of papers on field infill drilling projects since 1989. Table 1 summarizes some of the typical infill drilling projects reviewed in our study in field name order, includes comments on reservoir type, rock type, initial well spacing, as well as lessons learned from each case and case reference. If the infill drilling projects are classified by field environment, the results will be that the onshore fields are the majority. It seems that the infill drilling is not widely used in the offshore reservoirs as a viable improved hydrocarbon recovery method which might be caused by the unique characteristics of the offshore environments.

Table 1- Summary of Reviewed Infill Drilling Projects Field name Reservoir type Rock type Initial well spacing 40-acre N/A 40-acre 80-acre N/A 640acre 80-acre Lessons Learned References

Barrow Island Field Bombay High East Canton F-pad Gullfaks Field Hugoton LeonardianRestricted Platform Moxa Arch Niger Delta

Australia offshore oil field Offshore field in India Onshore oil field in Ohio Oil field in Prudhoe Bay Norway offshore oil field Onshore gas field in USA Oil field in Permian Basin Gas field in Wyoming Giant oil field in Nigeria

Highly complex sandstones Highly heterogeneous carbonate Lowpermeability sands Heterogeneous sandstone Highly heterogeneous reservoirs Shallow marine carbonate Highly Complex carbonate Highly heterogeneous sands Poorly connect sands

Field production significantly increased. Re-entry and clamp-on infill wells improved field recovery. Infill wells increase recovery factor from 11% to 13%. Infill wells increased oil recovery of 2.1 MMSTB Through tubing infill drilling increased Gullfaks oil recovery. The 659 infill wells have not added GIP. Infill wells developed potential reserves. Infill drilling on 160 acre would increase reserves by 68%. Infill drilling, stimulation and gas-lift improved field recovery.

29 32 27 19 28 8-10, 20-21 14

640acre N/A

17 16

Infill drilling-lessons learnt in the past 20 years Block 1, Forum 5 paper

North Kadi North Rlley Ozona Seventy-six West Tapis Field Wasson San Andres Field Oil field in North Cambay Basin, India Oil field in Texas Onshore gas field in Texas Oil field in Texas Offshore oil field in South China Sea Onshore field in Texas Fluvial deposit sands Stratified dolomite Complex turbidite sands Highly complex sandstones Highly heterogeneous sandstone Dolomites N/A 80-acre 320acre N/A N/A 80-acre 33% infill wells achived 1.7% additionl reserves. Continuity is the major factor to the success of infill drilling. Infill wells greatly increase Ozona reserves. Estimated 6 MMSTB of remaining oil can be developed by infill wells. Integration study increased reserves by 30%. Infill wells and pattern reconfiguration added 14.2 MMSTB reserve. 35 12 24-25 13 18 30

Successful Infill Drilling Experience

It is well known that internal reservoir heterogeneity can created significant fluid flow anisotropy, which can trap the remaining mobile oil in the compartments poorly contacted by the current well spacing and in zones inefficiently swept of waterflooding or gasflooding. Therefore, it is not surprised to find (Table 1) that infill drilling has been successful in both sandstone and carbonate reservoirs. Holtz, et al.14 reported that Leonardian Restricted Platform Carbonate reservoirs exhibit abnormally low recovery efficiencies. Cumulative production from those mature Permian Basin reservoirs is only 17 percent of the STOOIP, less than half the average efficiency of other carbonate reservoirs in the Permian Basin. Later, it was found that this poor recovery efficiency is directly related to high degrees of vertical and lateral facies heterogeneity caused by high-frequency, cyclic sedimentation in low-energy carbonate platform environments. Because of their geologic complexity, the Leonardian Restricted Platform Carbonate reservoirs have the potential of 683 MMSTB for reserve growth. Their study indicated that the ultimate recovery efficiency of the above reservoirs can nearly triples when reservoir development changes from 80-acre primary recovery to 10-acre secondary recovery. It seems that the success potential of infill drilling is directly related to reservoir heterogeneity. Holtz, et al. 15 have demonstrated that in their further studies in the Permian Basin. Normal carbonate reservoirs in Permian Basin exhibit an average recovery efficiency of about 35 percent. However, those reservoirs producing from rocks deposited in restricted platform settings are associated with even lower efficiencies, exhibit average efficiencies of less than 20 percent, reflecting the high degree of heterogeneity in these rocks. Because of their low recovery efficiencies and high degree of heterogeneity, these reservoirs are ideal candidates for studies of the potential for reserve growth. The Moxa Arch Frontier Formation in Wyoming is very heterogeneous with permeabilities ranging from 0,001 mD to more that 0.1 mD. The productive sand thicknesses vary from less than 10 ft to over 70 ft. Effective drainage areas range from over 640 acres to less than 100 acres. Cipolla and Kyte17 concluded that infill drilling on 160 acre spacing within a portion of the Moxa Arch field would increase reserves by 68% when compared to reserves for 320 acre spacing based on their study. Extensive infill drilling has been practiced in the West Texas carbonate reservoirs as a method of modifying waterflood patterns and increasing pay continuity.37 The Seventy-six West Field13 is one of nearly 300 south Texas fields with similar depositional, structural, and production characteristics. Therefore, the infill drilling success of Seventy-Six West field can be expected from other south Texas fields.

Infill drilling-lessons learnt in the past 20 years Block 1, Forum 5 paper

Integration - The Key to the Success of Infill Drilling Projects

The integration study of sequence stratigraphy, log analysis, 3D seismic, reservoir simulation, and drilling has increased Tapis Field reserves by 30% through rig workover, infill drilling from existing platforms and installation of a new satellite platform.18 The Tapis field experience further demonstrates the value of integration for mature fields. Yeager, et al.26 conducted an integration study to determine the infill drilling potential for a portion of the Bakersville Field in Coshocton County, Ohio. Their result indicated that the existing wells are effectively recovering the gas in place. Therefore, potential infill locations offsetting highly productive Beekmantown completions are likely to encounter reservoir pressures significantly lower than the original 3,100 psia. Based on the results of their study, the Bakersville operator decided not to drill proposed infill wells, thereby eliminating unnecessary capital expenditures. Rushing and Blasingame33 presented the results of the Clear Fork carbonate in the TXL South Unit Field in the Ector County, Texas, using an integrated approach. The primary evaluation tool was decline type curve analysis and well performance analysis was complemented with petrophysical and geological studies, each representing different reservoir scales. Based on their study results, Rushing and Blasingame identified the best field areas for future infill drilling. At the same time, the integrated study is also the key to the success of the infill drilling optimization of the naturally fractured tight-gas Mesaverde Sandstone reservoirs in San Juan Basin.31 Therefore; it is the recommended method for future infill drilling projects.

Unsuccessful Infill Drilling Experience

The Hugoton gas field in the largest gas field in the Lower 48 states and several hundreds infill wells have been drilled since the Kansas Hugoton infill drilling program started in 1987.8 Since then, many researcher have analyzed the performance of the Hugoton infill drilling program. McCoy, et al.8-10 compared the 659 Kansas Hugoton infill well performances and companion original wells using official deliverability tests and production history data and they concluded that the results from those infill drilling wells have not found any additional gas-in-place. At the same time, they presented the pitfalls in the used of official deliverability and wellhead shut-in pressure difference between infill wells and companion original wells to indicate additional gas-in-place. The further published Hugoton infill drilling studies20-21 also supported the fact that the Hugoton infill wells and original wells are in pressure communication and the pressure difference between each set of original and infill wells is caused by the pressure gradient in the high permeability layer(s) between the two wells. The original wells already have drained significant volumes of gas from the high permeable productive layers in the area of new infill wells. Therefore, trapped or bypassed gas does not exist due to low areal heterogeneity of the Hugoton field. Xue, et al.22 compared the waterflood infill drilling and CO2 flood in the Monahans unit and Johnson J.L. AB unit and they found that with waterflood infill drilling at 10-acre spacing, the recovery factor can be as high as 30%. However, the economic analysis indicates that waterflood on a 10-acre well spacing is less profitable when compared to CO2 flood. Moreover, it is rarely reported that infill drilling practice has been applied to the fields whose current well spacing is less than 10-acre even for the low-permeability hydrocarbon fields.

Vertical Infill Wells vs. Deviated/Horizontal Infill Wells

Tewari, et al.32 demonstrated that the sidetracking of problematic wells was a viable option in the offshore Bombay High field for production of bypassed oil since it could reduce the well inventories and saved valuable slot on the offshore platform. The results of their Bombay field study indicated that limited success of workover jobs, poor cementation, bad wellbore conditions, and early water breakthrough are the main reason to make infill wells susceptible to channelling behind casing and cross flow between the layers. Based on their study, Tewari, et al. concluded that the drilling of infill wells through clamp-on is a cost-effective technique for

Infill drilling-lessons learnt in the past 20 years Block 1, Forum 5 paper incremental oil recovery in the highly heterogeneous and multilayered carbonate field like Bombay High. Horizontal wells are usually drilled as development wells to recover incremental oil and to accelerate oil from certain locations such as poorly floodable and drainable oil. Bower23 reported a case in Canada that the estimated potential incremental oil reserve can be as high as 2.8 billion barrels due to horizontal infill wells. Historic production and well performance data from Yibal field34 indicated that the later drilled horizontal wells are comparable vertical wells on oil rates except the early drilled horizontal wells. But, the later drilled horizontal wells have much higher water cut which made them uneconomical. A further study suggests that the only parts of the perforated intervals contribute to the fluid flow in the horizontal wells and it is confirmed by the recent production logging. A study on the 12,000 horizontal wells drilled in different regions of Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin in 2004 indicated that the horizontal wells, in general, have been economically, especially for the wells in tight gas heavy oil reservoirs, in a variety of reservoir setting in Western Canadian Sedimentary Basins.36 However, this study also revealed that about one out of three horizontal wells in Western Canada are not profitable. Therefore, it may be prudent in many situations to drill vertical wells rather than horizontal infill wells due to various reservoir uncertainty and risks, although horizontal wells may offer many advantages.

Blanket vs. Targeted Infill Drilling

Operators have historically used blanket infill drilling technique to drill infill wells in large hydrocarbon basins. In this method, wells are drilled on uniform well patterns and spacing, therefore, reservoir quality is not considered. Obviously, it is not the optimum development strategy. Yadavalli, et al.11 evaluated the waterflood infill drilling performance in the study area of the Johnson J.L.AB unit in Ector County, West Texas. The economic evaluation for blanket and targeted infill drilling scenarios indicated that the targeted infill drilling scenario resulted in a higher recovery and better economic return than the blanket infill drilling scenario. Moreover, they found that the optimum infill drilling pattern did not need to be a regular pattern. Generally speaking, targeted infill drilling techniques can optimize a hydrocarbon field development by maximizing economic returns and reducing capital expenditures. However, targeted infill drilling methods often require a complete reservoir evaluation to identify areas of the field with best quality rock and largest volume of remained hydrocarbon in place which will make it uneconomical for some large hydrocarbon fields. In the following sections, we will discuss two recent developed targeted infill drilling techniques that do not need a complete reservoir evaluation to determine infill drilling potentials in large tight gas basins.

Fast Methods for Determining Infill Drilling Potentials The recommended way to determine infill-drilling potential in a reservoir is to conduct a complete reservoir evaluation involving geological, geophysical, and reservoir analyses and interpretations. While it is accurate, this approach can be prohibitively time-consuming and expensive for some large hydrocarbon fields. As a matter of fact, it is almost economically impossible for operators to conduct a complete reservoir evaluation when they are dealing with a large, mature tight hydrocarbon field which has hundreds or even thousands of developing wells. It is not uncommon for a company to have hundreds or even thousands of infill candidates to choose from in the tight hydrocarbon fields. Therefore, for some large, low-permeability hydrocarbon basins with large data sets and complex geology, the cost and time requirements of a conventional reservoir evaluation study are not acceptable. At the same time, the low-permeability wells are usually being produced not by major oil companies, for the most part, by small independent operators. Research is the key to the

Infill drilling-lessons learnt in the past 20 years Block 1, Forum 5 paper survival of those low-permeability wells; however, those small independent producers do not have the means to conduct their own research. Faced with the daunting task of trying to determine where to drill several hundred infill wells in a tight hydrocarbon reservoir, many operators have to rely on very simple analyses to select infill locations. This sometimes results in wells being drilled in the wrong locations, and even worse, after seeing less-thanexpected infill performance, many operators will simply give up on infill drilling and this may be missing significant opportunities.

Moving Window Technique

In the early 1990s, U.S. Department of Energy has released the Infill Drilling Predictive Model (IDPM) for infill drilling of waterflood projects. This model can use a minimum amount of reservoir and geologic description to determine if an existing waterflood project would benefit from infill drilling.12 However, the IDPM requires knowledge of two important heterogeneity elements which are not easily or often measured in actual fields. The two heterogeneity elements are pay continuity and permeability variation among layers. As an alternative approach to conducting detailed studies, various authors have used empirical or statistical analyses to model variable well performance.37-45 In particular; McCain et al.40 used a statistical, moving-window method to determine infill potential in a complex, low-permeability gas reservoir. Later, Voneiff and Cipolla41 further developed the moving window technique and apply it for rapid assessment of infill and re-completion potential in the Ozona field.

Methodology
The moving window method is a rigorous, model-based analysis method. It is based on a combination of the material balance equation and the pseudo-steady state flow equation, simplified by assuming that many properties are constant within an individual moving domain. The result is a linear regression equation that is applied within each window.46 The moving window technique is a set of empirically derived approximations and comparisons that attempt to mimic what a reservoir engineer does when faced with a single infill location evaluation. It can quickly evaluate the infill drilling potentials within weeks even with thousands of wells. The primary advantages of the technique are its speed and reliance upon well location and production data only. Figure 1 shows the diagram of the moving window method and it consists of a multitude of local analyses, each in an areal window centered on an existing well. The regression coefficients for each window are determined by regressing parameters for the wells within each window. The windows are limited in size, e.g., 3000 acres, and generally contain 5 to 20 wells. If the number of wells in a window is less than a minimum value, e.g., 3-5, a regional or global regression is used instead of a local regression.

Figure 1. Diagram of the fast method showing how the window moves across area. The small blue circles are the well locations and big circles are the moving domains.47

Infill drilling-lessons learnt in the past 20 years Block 1, Forum 5 paper Once the regression equation coefficients are determined for each window, performance can be estimated for infill wells by substituting the appropriate values for candidate infill well conditions. The result of this analysis is a prediction of BY for a new infill well offsetting each existing well. The primary advantages of the moving domain technique are its speed and its reliance upon only well location and production data. It is routinely used to conduct infill screening studies of projects consisting of 1000s of wells and can be used to evaluate an entire basin in a few man-days.

Applications
The Ozona Field is located in Crockett County in Southwest Texas and it contains two major producing sands with about 1,800 wells.41-42 These sands are complex turbidite deposits characterized by lenticular gas-bearing members at depths of 6,000 to 7,500 ft with permeability from less than 0.001 mD to over 0.10 mD. The development of this field began in 1960s on 320-acre well spacing, with subsequent infill drilling on 160 and 80-acre spacing. Later, the 40-acre spacing was granted for the majority of the field in 1995. The production and geological studies of the Ozona Field24-25, 41-42 show limited sand continuity among wells and large variety in sand qualities over short distances. Therefore, well interference was not expected in the majority of the field. The large number of existing wells and the compartmentalized nature of the sands precluded detailed reservoir analysis to determine the infill drilling potential in the Ozona field. Voneiff, et al.41 applied the moving window technique first to determine the infill drilling potentials in the Ozona field. The results of their study identified 1,246 infill candidates representing 18 billion m3 of additional reserves in the field. Using this method, not only were they able to quantify the number of infill wells and infill reserves, but they were also able to identify the location of the infill wells in a short time frame. Beside the applications in the Ozone field, the moving window technique also has been successfully applied to Cotton Valley in east Texas,40 Milk River formation in Western Canada Basin,43-44 Mesaverde formation in the San Juan Basin,44 Morrow formation in Permian Basin,44 and Austin Chalk45 to quantify infill drilling potentials.

Discussion
Guan, et al.46 have systematically evaluated the accuracy of the moving window technique and they concluded that this technique can accurately predict infill well performance for a group of infill candidates, often to within 10%. However, predicted infill potential for individual wells can be off by more than +/-50%. The method can predict average infill well performance reasonably well even when well productivity has decreased significantly due to depletion. At the same time, the accuracy of predicted infill well performance, for either individual wells or the average of a group of wells, decreases as heterogeneity increases. Moreover, the accuracy of predicted average infill well performance increases as the number of wells in the project increases. Guan, et al. 47-48 also found that larger errors usually occur in sparsely drilled regions of the reservoir. When the number of wells in a particular window is inadequate, the moving domain technique defaults to a regional or global correlation, instead of a local correlation. A regional or global correlation obviously will not predict local performance as accurately as a local correlation. At the same time, the fast method is based on analysis of well locations and production data; thus, if no wells are drilled in local regions of high permeability, the fast method will not be able to predict higher infill performance for the particular area. It appears that the fast method performs well in predicting the average infill well performance for a group of wells. So we should examine the infill-drilling program for groups of wells when we use this technology to evaluate infill-drilling potential. When we use this technology, we can divide a basin or field into smaller areas and predict the distributions of infill performance as a group for the smaller areas, rather than individual wells. Based on the previous studies results we suggest using this fast method as an infill-screening tool in the tight-gas basins consisting of thousands of wells. In this case, it is almost impossible to conduct conventional reservoir studies while the moving domain technique can be used to evaluate an entire basin in a matter of man-days. The result of this technique can tell petroleum engineers what areas need to put more efforts in further studies.

Infill drilling-lessons learnt in the past 20 years Block 1, Forum 5 paper

Rapid Inversion Method

Another approach for infill and recompletion candidate well selection, rapid inversion method, has been recently developed by Gao and McVay49 at Texas A&M University. It uses reservoir simulation combined with automatic history matching. In this method, a reservoir simulator serves as the forward model, which calculates well production responses from reservoir description data. Then, sensitivity coefficients are calculated internally and used in the inversion of history production data to estimate the permeability field. Finally, based on the estimated permeability field and forward model, the expected performances of potential infill wells are determined.

Methodology
This rapid inversion method uses Modified Generalized Pulse-Spectrum Technique (MGPST) to calculate sensitivity coefficients. The MGPST was first proposed by Chu et al.50 by using the basic ideas of Tang et al.51 and it produces the sensitivity coefficients in one simulation run. However, the linear system to be solved depends on the number of wells as opposed to the number of parameters. Since the number of wells is usually much less than the number of grid blocks, therefore, the MGPST is very efficient. Since the rapid inversion method is simulation-based, all the data required to initialize a reservoir simulator (e.g. reservoir property distributions, PVT properties, reservoir pressure) are required to apply the method. However, since the goal of this method is rapid, approximate estimation of infill potential, this approach does not conduct a detailed reservoir characterization study. Instead, in an initial application, it simply uses whatever data are available. For example, reservoir property maps are used if they are available; otherwise, the model is initialized with uniform average values. This use of reservoir simulation inversion technology in Gao and McVays method differs from typical application of reservoir simulation in the scale of application. Since the goal of this method is to determine infill or recompletion potential over large areas and for large number of wells, often at scales exceeding individual reservoirs, the large-scale, coarse-resolution permeability fields are determined rather than small-scale, fine-resolution property fields used in conventional studies of individual reservoirs. Another difference of this proposed inversion approach from conventional reservoir study is that instead of producing at historical rates and matching on pressure, this approach produces wells in the simulation at estimated flowing bottom-hole pressure and match on production data. This is because the method primarily relies on readily available well location and production data. This rapid inversion method uses Modified Generalized Pulse-Spectrum Technique (MGPST) to calculate sensitivity coefficients. The MGPST was first proposed by Chu et al.50 by using the basic ideas of Tang et al.51 and it produces the sensitivity coefficients in one simulation run. In MGPST, the linear system to be solved depends on the number of wells as opposed to the number of parameters such as Gradient Simulator method49. Therefore, for large field case with large number of parameters, the MGPST is more efficient.

Application
The rapid inversion method has been applied in an actual production data from the 9township area from a large gas basin in the North America.49 The study field is a shallow gas reservoir with approximately 42 years of production history and there are approximately 201 wells with production through 1/31/2004. Using the estimated permeability distribution obtained by history matching production data through 12/31/2000, reservoir performance was forecasted through 1/31/2004. There were 49 new wells that began production during this 3-year period. Figures 2 shows field-wide predicted performance for infill wells, those wells first produced after 2001 and close to existing wells.

Infill drilling-lessons learnt in the past 20 years Block 1, Forum 5 paper

20

Field Cumulative Production, Bcf

18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

cal obs

Decimal year
Figure 2. Predicted field cumulative production for 34 infill wells.49

The results in the above field case application showed that in areas with existing wells with sufficient production data to quantify reservoir quality, the proposed method can accurately predict the production potential of groups of infill wells.

Discussion
It is shows in their paper49 apparent that performance was predicted more accurately for infill wells than step-out wells. This is because the infill wells benefit from the more accurate permeability distribution resulting from the production influence of nearby existing wells. Since the method is based primarily on well locations and production data for a rapid screening evaluation, predictions for individual well locations can possess significant error, particularly for step-out wells or in areas without sufficient production data. Predictions for step-out wells or in areas with insufficient production can be improved only by including other types of data, e.g. seismic data. Conclusions This paper reviewed the infill drilling experiences as it is found in the open literature and summarized what petroleum engineers have learned during the past 20 + years on field infill drilling projects. Both onshore and offshore infill drilling projects have been included in this paper. Various success and failure infill drilling cases are presented, which will help operators to develop operational and design strategies for current and future infill drilling projects. This paper also discussed two recently developed fast methods, moving window technique and rapid inversion method, to determine infill drilling potentials in large, mature, tight hydrocarbon basins. Both methods are primarily based only on the well locations and production data, which are widely available in the field, and both can accurately predict infill potentials for groups of infill candidates.

References
1. Driscoll, V.J., Recovery Optimization Through Infill Drilling Concepts, Analysis, and Field Results, paper SPE 4977 presented at the 49th Annual Meeting of the Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME, Houston, TX, October 6-9, 1974. 2. Gould, T.L., and Munoz, M.A., An Analysis of Infill Drilling, paper SPE 11021 presented at the 57th Annual Fall Technical Conference and Exhibition of the Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME, New Orleans, Louisiana, September 26-29, 1982.

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3. Barber, A.H., George, C.J., Stiles, L.H., and Thompson, B.B., Infill Drilling to Increase Reserves Actual Experience in Nine Fields in Texas, Okalahoma, and Illinois, paper SPE 11023, JPT, August, 1983. 4. Gould, T.L., Sam Sarem, A.M., Infill Drilling for Incremental Recovery, paper SPE 18941, JPT, March 1989. 5. Wu, C.H., Laughlin, B.A., and Jardon, M., Infill Drilling Enhances Waterflooding Recovery, paper SPE 17286, JPT, October 1989. 6. Thakur, G.C. and Satter, A., Integrated Waterflood Asset Management, PennWell, 1998. 7. Wu, C.H., et al., An Evaluation of Waterflood Infill Drilling in West Texas Clearfork and San Andres Carbonate Reserves, SPE paper 19783 presented at the 1989 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, San Antonio, 8-11 October. 8. McCoy, T.F., Fetkovich, M.J., Needham, R.B., and Reese, D.E., Analysis of Kansas Hugoton Infill Drilling, paper SPE 20756 presented at the 65th SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in New Orleans, Louisiana, September 23-26, 1990. 9. McCoy, T.F., Fetkovich, M.J., Needham, R.B., and Reese, D.E., Analysis of Kansas Hugoton Infill Drilling Program, paper SPE 20779, JPT, June 1992. 10. Fetkovich, M.J., Ebbs, D.J., and Voelker, J.J., Mutiwell, Multilayer Model to Evaluate Infill Drilling Potential in the Okalahoma Hugoton Field, paper SPE 20778, SPE Reservoir Engineering, August 1994. 11. Yadavalli, S.K., Brimhall, R.M., and Wu, C.H., Case History of Waterflood Infill Drilling in the Johnson J.L. AB Unit, paper SPE 21817 presented at the Rock Mountain Regional Meeting and Low-Permeability Reservoirs Symposium held in Denver, Colorado, Aril 15-17, 1991. 12. Fuller, S.M., Sarem, A.M., and Gould, T.L., Screening Waterfloods for Infill Drilling Opportunities, paper SPE 22333 presented at the SPE International Meeting on Petroleum Engineering held in Beijing, China, 24-27 March 1992. 13. Hamilton, D.S., Reservoir Heterogeneity at Seventy-Six West Field, Texas: An Opportunity for Increased Oil Recovery From Barrier/Strandplain Reservoirs of the Jackson-Yegua Trend by Geological Targeted Infill Drilling, paper SPE 22672 presented at the 66th Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition of the Society of Petroleum Engineers held in Dallas, TX, October 6-9, 1991. 14. Holtz, M.H., Ruppel, S.C., and Hocott, C., Analysis of Reserve Growth Potential in LeonardianRestricted Platform Carbonate reservoirs, Permian Basin: An Integrated Approach, paper SPE 22900 presented at the 66th Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition of the Society of Petroleum Engineers held in Dallas, TX, October 6-9, 1991. 15. Tyler, N., Galloway, W. E., Garrett, C. M., Jr,, and Ewing, T. E., Oil Accumulation, Production Characteristics, and Targets for Additional Recovery in Major Oil Reservoirs of Texas, 1984, The University of Texas at Austin, Bureau of Economic Geology Geological Circular 84-2, p. 29. 16. Ofoh, E.P., Geological Heterogeneity in the Niger Delta: A Case for Additional Recovery Through a Combined Effort of Geologically Targeted infill Drilling, Stimulation, and Gas-Lift Installation, paper SPE 24745 presented at the 67th Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition of the Society of Petroleum Engineers held in Washington, DC, October 4-7, 1992. 17. Cipolla, C.L., and Kyte, D.G., Infill Drilling in the Moxa Arch: A Case History of the Frontier Formation, paper SPE 24909 presented at the 67th Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition of the Society of Petroleum Engineers held in Washington, DC, October 4-7, 1992. 18. Abdullah, M.A.Y., and Olsen, B.S., Tapis- New Opportunities from a Maturing Field, paper SPE 54339 presented at the 1999 SPE Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition held in Jakarta, Indonesia, 20-22 April 1999. 19. Shirzadi, S.G. and Lawal, A.S., Multidisciplinary Approach for Targeting New Wells in the Prudhoe Bay Field, paper SPE 26093 presented at the Western Regional Meeting held in Anchorage, Alaska, 26-28 May 1993. 20. McCoy, et al., Analysis of Kansas Hugoton Infill Drilling: Part III 1993 Update and Infill Well Case Histories, paper SPE 26189 presented at the SPE Gas Technology Symposium held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 28-30 June 1993. 21. Ryan, T.C., Oberst, R.J., and Hansen, C.D.: Analysis of Infill Drilling in Kansas Hugoton, paper SPE 27921 presented at the SPE Mid-Continent Gas Symposium held in Amarillo, Texas, 22-24 May 1994. 22. Xue, G., Mallk, Z.A., Wu, C.H., and Mamora, D.D.: A Comparative Technical and Economic Analysis of Waterflood Infill Drilling and CO2 flood in West Texas Carbonate Reservoirs, paper SPE 27642 presented at the 1994 SPE Permian Basin Oil and Gas Recovery Conference held in Midland, Texas, 16-18 March, 1994. 23. Bowers, B., Bielecky, J., Drummond, K, Ku, J., and Wall, B., Impact of Horizontal Drilling on Western th Canadian Supply of Conventional Crude Oil, paper No 95-98 presented at the 46 Annual Technical Meeting of Petroleum Society of CIM, May 14-17, 1995. 24. Cipolla, C.L., and Wood, M.C.: A Statistical Approach to Infill-Drilling Studies: Case History of the Ozona Canyon Sands, paper SPE 35628, SPE Reservoir Engineering, August 1996.

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25. Cipolla, C.L., and Mayerhofer, M.: Infill Drilling & Reserve Growth Determination in Lenticular Tight Gas Sands, paper SPE 36735 presented at the SPE Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition held in Denver, Colorado, 7-9 October 1996. 26. Yeager, D.L., Frantz, Jr., J.J., Moody, M.A., and Neese, M.A.: Evaluation of Infill Drilling Potential of the Beekmantown Formation, Bakersville Field, Coshocton County, Ohio, paper SPE 37335 presented at the 1996 SPE Eastern Regional Meeting held in Columbus, Ohio, 23-25 October 1996. 27. Wozinak, D.A., Wing, J.L., and Schrider, L.A.: Infill Reserve Growth Resulting From Gas Huff-n-Puff and Infill Drilling A Case History, paper SPE 39214 presented at the 1997 SPE Eastern Regional Meeting held in Lexington, Kentucky, 22-24 October 1997. 28. Vikane, E., Samsonsen, B., and Lorentzen, K.E., Through Tubing Infill Drilling as a Method for Increased Oil Recovery on the Gullfaks Field, paper SPE 39358 presented at the 1998 IADC/SPE Drilling Conference held in Dallas, Texas, 3-6 March 1998. 29. Allard, D.N., Hillyer, M.G., Gerbacia, W.E., and Rychener, L.M., Empirical Risk Assessment of Infill Drilling Location, Barrow Island, Australia, paper SPE 56816 presented at the 1999 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Houston, Texas, 3-6 October 1999. 30. Thai, B.N., et al., Denver Unit Infill Drilling and Pattern Reconfiguration Program, paper SPE 59548 presented at the 2000 SPE Permian Basin Oil and Gas Recovery Conference held n Midland, Texas 21-23 March 2000. 31. Al-Hadrami, H.K., and Teufel, L.W., Influence of Permeability Anisotropy and Reservoir Heterogeneity on Optimization of Infill Drilling in Naturally Fractured Tight-Gas Mesaverde Sandstone Reservoirs, San Juan Basin, paper SPE 60295 presented at the 2000 SPE Rocky Mountain Regional/Low Permeability Reservoirs Symposium in Denver, CO, 12-15 March 2000. 32. Tewari, R.D., Mittal, A.K., and Patra, S.K., An Overview of Re-Entry and Clamp-on Infill Drilling for Incremental Recovery in Offshore Field, paper SPE 64438 presented at the SPE Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition held in Brisbane, Australia, 16-18 October 2000. 33. Rusing, J.A., and Blasingame, T.A., Reservoir Characterization and Infill Drilling Study of a LowPermeability Carbonate: An Evaluation of Blanket Versus Targeted Infill Drilling Strategies, paper SPE 84282 presented at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Denver, Colorado, 5-8 October 2003. 34. Mijnssen, F.C.J., et al., Maximizing Yibals Remaining Value, paper SPE 84939, SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering, August 2003. 35. Ghosh, B.N., Sarkar, S.D., Lohiya, J.P., and Das, T,K., Improved Oil Recovery by Infill Drilling in a Mature Field, A Success Story, paper SPE 89368 presented that the 2004 SPE/DOC Fourteen Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 16-21 April 2004. 36. Singhal, A.K., and Selwyn, J., Some Lessons on Application of Horizontal Wells from the Western Canadian Experience, paper SPE 89372 presented at the 2004 SPE/DOC Fourteen Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 16-21 April 2004. 37. French, R.L., Brimhall, R.M., and Wu, C.H., A Statistical and Economic Analysis of Incremental Waterflood Infill Drilling Recoveries in West Texas Carbonate Reservoirs, paper SPE 22624 presented at the 1991 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Dallas, 6-9 October. 38. Wu, C.H., Lu, G.F., Gillespie, W., and Yen, J., Statistical and Fuzzy Infill Drilling Models for Carbonate Reservoirs, paper SPE 37728 presented at the 1997 SPE Middle East Oil Show & Conference, Bahrain, 15-18 March. 39. Soto, B.R., Wu, C.H, and Buleba, A.M., Infill Drilling Recovery Models for Carbonate Reservoirs A Multiple Statistical, Non-Parametric Regression, and Neural Network Approach, paper SPE 57458 presented at the 1999 SPE Eastern Regional Conference and Exhibition, Charleston, West Virginia, 21-22 October. 40. McCain, W.D. Jr., Voneiff, G.W., Hunt, E.R., and Semmelbeck, M.E., A Tight Gas Field Study: Carthage (Cotton Valley) Field, paper SPE 26141 presented at the 1993 SPE Gas Technology Symposium, Calgary, 28-30 June. 41. Voneiff, G.W. and Cipolla, C., A New Approach to Large-Scale Infill Evaluations Applied to the Ozona (Canyon) Gas Field, paper SPE 35203 presented at the 1996 SPE Permian Oil and Gas Recovery Conference, Midland, Texas, 27-29 March. 42. Cipolla, C. L., and Wood, M.C., A Statistical Approach to Infill-Drilling Studies: Case History of the Ozona Canyon Sands, SPE Reservoir Engineering, August 1996, p196-202. 43. Hudson, J.W., Jochen, J.E., and Jochen, V.A., Practical Technique to Identify Infill Potential in LowPermeability Gas Reservoirs Applied to the Milk River Formation in Canada, paper SPE 59779 presented at the 2000 SPE/CERI Gas Symposium, Calgary, 3-5 April. 44. Hudson, J.W., Jochen, J.E., and Spivey, J.P., Practical Methods to High-Grade Infill Opportunities Applied to the Mesaverde, Morrow, and Cotton Valley Formations, paper SPE 68598 presented at the 2001 SPE Hydrocarbon Economics and Evaluation Symposium, Dallas, 2-3 April 2001. 45. Kyte, D.G. and Meehan, D.N., Horizontal Spacing, Depletion, and Infill Potential in the Austin Chalk, paper SPE 36721 presented at the 1996 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Denver, CO, October 6-9. 46. Guan, L., McVay, D. A., Jensen, J. L., and Voneiff, G. 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Infill drilling-lessons learnt in the past 20 years Block 1, Forum 5 paper

47. Guan, L., McVay, D. A., and Jensen, J. L., Parameter Sensitivity Study of a Statistical Technique for Fast Infill Evaluation of Tight Gas Reservoirs, CIPC paper 2004-163 presented at 2004 Canadian International Petroleum Conference, Calgary, June 8-10. 48. Guan, L., McVay, D. A., and Jensen, J. L. and Voneiff, G. W., Evaluation of a Statistical Method for Assessing Production Potential in Mature, Low-Permeability Gas Reservoirs, Journal of Energy Resources Technology, 126(3), 2004. 49. Gao, H., and McVay, D.A., Gas Infill Well Selection Using Rapid Inversion Methods, paper SPE presented at the 2004 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in Houston, TX, 26-29 September. 50. Chu, L., Reynolds, A.C. and Oliver, D.S., Computation of Sensitivity Coefficients for Conditioning the Permeability Field to Well-test Pressure data, In Situ (1995) 19, 179. 51. Tang, Y. N. and Chen, Y.M.., Generalized Pulse-Spectrum Technique for 2-D and 2-Phase History Matching, Applied Numerical Mathematics (1989) Vol. 5, 529-539.