Patent ID: 6886632

Claim:
A method of estimating formation characteristics of an inter-well region, comprising: a. providing a first well representing the origination of at least one salinity front and at least one saturation front; b. providing one or more monitoring locations, each equipped with at least one electrical resistivity array (ERA); and c. monitoring the arrival of said at least one salinity front and said at least one saturation front at one or more monitoring locations using said ERA as a function of time; and d. determining at least one formation characteristic of the inter-well region based on the joint inversion of the relative arrival times of said at least one salinity front and said at least one saturation front measured in (c), wherein said at least one formation characteristic is selected from the group consisting of effective porosity, residual oil saturation, and connate water saturation, and wherein said at least one salinity front and said at least one salinity front are monitored at at least one common monitoring location.