The reservoir-rock contact surface limiting the size of the permeable petroleum reservoir where the practical fluid flow may occur.

The way producing or  injecting wells  respond to the actual reservoir boundary maybe very complex due to limited observation time and cross-well and cross-layer interference.

Most well tests can only detect the dynamic effect of the reservoir flow boundary or its absence (infinite acting reservoir flow boundary).

There are some production analysis techniques based on long-term production data readings which can reveal the size of the actual petroleum reservoir (see for example Multiwell Retrospective Testing)

The actual petroleum reservoir is always constrained in volume but in most practical applications the observation time is too short to see the effects of the reservoir boundaries (see ).

See Also

Petroleum Industry / Upstream / Subsurface E&P Disciplines / Petroleum Geology

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