Definition - What does Formation Pressure mean?
Formation pressure is defined as the amount of pressure available in a hydrocarbon reservoir. This is also called as “Hydrostatic pressure or Reservoir Pressure”. Before planning for a drilling process of an oil or gas well, understanding the pressure inside a reservoir becomes necessary. It helps in deciding an oil or gas well location on such type of reservoir which has enough amount of pressure to yield hydrocarbons to the surface automatically.
Petropedia explains Formation Pressure
When an E&P organization plans to build an oil or a gas well, it determines various reservoirs. There are various factors which concludes the planning of an oil well into actual drilling. Some of the factors are:
- Formation pressure or reservoir pressure where an oil well is made.
- Amount of hydrocarbons present in this reservoir so that production can take place for years.
- Geological parameters in favor of making an oil well.
- Easy availability of resources, etc.
Formation pressure is one of the important parameters as it decides the amount of pressure at which oil, gas, other liquids are stored in a reservoir. Determining this pressure is important as it helps in analyzing the time period till when an oil well will yield oil, gas and other liquids by itself (i.e. because of its own pressure difference). Once the reservoir pressure or formation pressure falls down, oil and gas organizations implement various recovery techniques such as steam injection, chemical injection or water injection techniques to bring the crude oil to the surface. Motors are also applied to build pressure so that crude flows to the surface once their’s no reservoir pressure.