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AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 19 (1935)

Issue: 6. (June)

First Page: 793

Last Page: 852

Title: Safety of Water-Flooding Pressures at Bradford, Pennsylvania

Author(s): Frederick G. Clapp (2)

Abstract:

The properties involved in the problem reviewed are located in the Bradford field, McKean County, Pennsylvania. A large number of wells were abandoned during early years of development, but operations have been revived by the Petroleum Reclamation Company, which is reclaiming the field by the water-flooding process. The system used is locally known as the "five-spot" process, by means of which water under abnormal pressure is forced down intake wells at all corners of a square and the crude is recovered in due course from an oil well at the center. Since the entire production area is covered with a pattern of such wells, it is evident that the "pay" zones in the Bradford sand become saturated with water at increasingly high abnormal pressures varying in accordance with th intake pressures.

The question placed before the writer in the summer of 1932 was whether any danger might ensue from loss of oil or destruction of strata or properties owing to excessive pressures transmitted against the roof of the sand by means of intake flooding. Some of the criteria considered were earthquakes, gas and volcanic blow-outs, surface subsidence, salt-dome mechanics, hydrostatic conditions in known aquifers, formulas for the strength of materials, etc. The answer at that time, after approaching the problem in various ways, was that no danger would result up to an intake pressure of about 3,000 pounds per square inch and probably much higher. Although time is not available to bring the researches thoroughly up to date or to carry any research to its ultimate conclusion, the results of t e original work are here given for such interest as they may hold for a petroleum geologist. It is hoped the several branches of study will be carried forward by other persons.

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