The great unknown: Fluid pressure change in time and space due to oil and gas production

Significant amounts of gas and oil have been produced in the Dutch on/offshore over the last 50 years. The extraction of large volumes of gas has resulted in major pressure depletion of the originally overpressured to highly overpressured gas reservoirs. The impact of local pressure depletion on the virgin pressure systems of aquifers connected to those reservoirs has not been studied in detail. This paper presents and discusses a new approach to assess the distribution and magnitude of such pressure changes in time and space in and around gas fields. The focus will be on Rotliegend gas fields since most gas fields in the Netherlands occur in Rotliegend reservoirs