Process of water invasion from Aquifer into oil reservoir or gas reservoir  due to pressure depletion.

The aquifer drive can be weak or strong depending on aquifer volume and water mobility comparing to mobility of oil and gas and contact geometry.

The most accurate way to simulate Aquifer Expansion (or shrinkage) is full-field 3D Dynamic Flow Model where Aquifer Expansion is treated as one of the fluid phases and accounts of geological heterogeneities, gas fluid properties, relperm properties and heat exchange with surrounding rocks.

Unfortunately, in many practical cases the detailed information on the aquifer is not available which does not allow a proper modelling of aquifer expansion using a geological framework.

Besides many practical applications require only knowledge of cumulative water influx from aquifer under pressure depletion. 

This allows building an Aquifer Drive Models using analytical methods.

See also

Physics /  Fluid Dynamics / Percolation / Reservoir flow / Reservoir flow drive mechanisms  

[ Depletion ] [ Recovery Methods ] [ Aquifer ] [ Edge-water Drive Aquifer ] [ Bottom-water Drive Aquifer ] [ Aquifer Drive @model ] 

Petroleum Industry / Upstream / Subsurface E&P Disciplines / Field Study & Modelling