The Oil Drum: Europe

Damage from rapid production in oil wells typically relates to either:

1.) A loss of the gas in solution due to pressure drops (gas solution drive reservoirs) The result is otherwise producible oil with nothing to make it mobile. It just sits there rather than moving toward what should be the lower pressure of the producing well bore. These sorts of depleted reservoirs are often excellent candidates for water flood redevelopment.

2.) Coning of water as the rapidly produced wells draw water from deeper in the produing formation rather than producing water free oil from the top of the formation. (Water drive reservoirs) This has the effect of leaving oil behind and bypassed. In fill drilling can tap into the by passed oil, but drilling new wells is an expensive proposition.

3.) Expanding gas caps as gas comes out of solution in the reservoir. This gas sits on top of the formation where the producing oil wells are now only capable of gas production. Producing that gas causes more problems are pressures drop further (the gas cap stays in place and probably grows with the loss of energy as noted in "1" becoming a real problem. Reduced pressure can also result in finicky pump performance when the pressure drop is very localized restricting or stopping production as a "gas lock" develops in the pump. This is sometimes a big deal with low perm reservoirs. You have to be patient and let the oil come to the well bore.

4.) Overly aggressive attempts at stimulation [ill advised or overly large frac jobs and acid jobs] can lead to "breaking into water as either the well is opened to an adjacent and potentially non oil bearing zone, or a highly permiable but largely vertical streak is opened up [think of a straw going to the bottom of a drink when the good stuff is right on top -- the "Super K" zones that occasionaly are mentioned as one of the issues facing Ghawar are an example of this sort of problem.]

The point is that gas wells typically don't have these issues. Producing a gas well flat out will somtimes leave behind some oil like liquids [and some "gas wells" make quite a lot of these liquids] and overly agrressive stimulation can lead to opening up zones that are not productive just like in an oil well ... but rapid production of a gas well typically doesn't cause the same type or severity of problems as too rapid production does for oil wells.

Hardly a technical explanation, but I hope that helped.