Abstract
The mechanism of the anisotropic permeability effects on the well patterns and reservoir development are investigated by coordinate transformation, fluid flow analysis, and reservoir development concepts. The Anisotropy of reservoir permeability has destruction and reconstruction effects on general well patterns. The originally designed flooding units are broken up, and new pattern units are made up of the wells that belong to different original units. The behavior possesses strong randomness, and leads to the chaotic relationship among the injection and production wells, and uncertain productivity of the oil reservoirs. It interferes significantly the oil production and recovery. To prevent the well pattern destruction, well line directions should be either parallel or perpendicular to the principal direction of the anisotropic permeability (i.e. the fracture direction). To optimize the development effects of the anisotropic oil reservoir, the latitudinal and longitudinal well spacing of the well network are calculated from the principal values of the anisotropic permeability.