Patent ID: 7715984

Claim:
A method for monitoring one or more characteristic of a region of a earth formation over time so as to provide reservoir characterization for reservoir management, comprising: a. obtaining source pressure pulses at one or more location in a source well so as to gather source pressure pulse data; b. obtaining observer pressure data at one or more location in an observer well, wherein said observer pressure data may be correlated to said source pressure pulse data; c. repeating (a) and (b) one or more times; d. developing a correlation between said source pressure pulse data and said observer pressure data as a function of time, wherein said correlation is based on a function governed by pressure diffusion; e. determining the time location of the maximum value of said correlation and analyzing the decay of said maximum value over time so as to gather correlation time data; f. using said correlation time data to obtain pressure diffusivity between the at least one source well and the at least one observer well and using the pressure diffusivity to estimate inter-well permeability, so as to monitor at least one characteristic such as permeability from the one or more characteristic of the region of said earth formation so as to gather monitored permeability data; and g. storing said monitored permeability data.