Optimum Position for Wells Producing at Constant Wellbore Pressure

This paper deals with the determination of the optimum position of several wells, producing at constant different wellbore pressures from a two-dimensional closed-boundary reservoirs, to maximize the cumulative production or the total flow rate. To achieve this objective they authors use an improved version of the analytical solution recently proposed by Rodriguez and Cinco-Ley and an optimization algorithm based on a quasi-Newton procedure with line search. At each iteration the algorithm approximates the negative of the objective function by a cuadratic relation derived from a Taylor series. The improvement of rodriguez and Cinco`s solution is attained in four ways. First, an approximation is obtained, which works better at earlier times (before the boundary dominated period starts) than the previous solution. Second, the infinite sums that are present in the solution are expressed in a condensed form, which is relevant for reducing the computer time when the optimization algorithm is used. Third, the solution is modified to take into account the possibility of having wells starting to produce at different times. This point allows them to deal with the problem of getting the optimum position for an infill drilling program. Last, the solution is extended to include the possibility of changingmore » the value of wellbore pressure or being able to stimulate any of the wells at any time. When the wells are producing at different wellbore pressures it is found that the optimum position is a function of time, otherwise the optimum position is fixed.« less