A Successful Peripheral Water Flood in a Thin Pennsylvanian Reservoir

The Northeast Jones area of Oklahoma was discovered in 1945. Production peaked in 1948 and the area was almost depleted by 1950. Primary recovery was an economic failure and the field was almost abandoned without a trial of secondary recovery. There were several reasons for the pessimism regarding water flooding, but the most predominant was the old "rule of thumb" that secondary recovery would be the same as primary recovery. The Northeast Jones Cleveland sand unit was formed in 1952, however, with the promotion of an outside group of operators. The water flood proved to be very successful and lucrative, recovering over twice as much waterflood oil as primary oil. Peripheral injection was employed which eliminated the need to drill new wells and, in retrospect, made the project much more successful than would a pattern water flood. The geometry of the water flood, the uniformity of the formation, and the high oil saturation are believed to be the major contributing factors to the high oil saturation are believed to be the major contributing factors to the high waterflood recovery and efficiency. Only 3.1 bbl of effective water injection were required for each barrel of oil recovered.