I am not a geologist. I just know that many of the wells we pumped dry in the early part of the last century are full again. That is especially true in California and Pennsylvania.
And you know that how?
“I am not a geologist. I just know that many of the wells we pumped dry in the early part of the last century are full again. That is especially true in California and Pennsylvania.”
It’s called migration! When we drill a well that zone is under pressure and that pressure is released through the well bore. We’ll let them flow as long as possible until the pressures drop to the point we have to use some type of artificial lift system. When it first starts the migration is intense and move allot of oil but as the pressure goes down so does the migration. at some point the migration is so slow and pressures so low that it doesn’t migrate fast enough to warrant pumping (cost more to pump than what you’ll make). I’ve got 2 flowing wells that I only open Once a week for about one day. I’ve got several pumping wells that I shut in in 98 and didn’t kick them back on until two years later. When they came on they produce about 3 times as much oil as they had before but that fell of rather fast back to it’s old production rates. Technicaly a well never goes dry it just gets to the point it’s not profitable to pump. Time is not your friend on down hole equipment and given enough it destroys your casing resultin a casing collapse or leak and then You plug it and walk away to the next one.