Can aerial photography improve oil recovery

The nature of petroleum reservoirs and the effect that hydraulic fracturing can have on displacement efficiency are reviewed. Evidence shows that the natural fracture system of many reservoirs may be observed from aerial photographs. Selecting oil-well locations to drill into a fracture, or at the intersection of 2 fractures can greatly improve recovery efficiency. This is especially true if the reservoir is to be waterflooded and wells hydraulically fractured. A survey was conducted near Pennsylvania State Univ. in which fracture traces were located by aerial photography and 3 water wells were drilled near these traces. This method resulted in increased productivity of 10 to 100 times the previous system used. It is expected that these results can be extended to shallow petroleum reservoirs.