Inthepresenceofbottomwater,adropinthereservoirpressureduetofluidproductioncausestheaquiferwatertoexpandandtoflowintothereservoir.Therefore,hydrocarbonproductionfromawellislimitedbythecriticalflowrate.Themainpurposeofthisstudyistoinvestigatethebreakthroughtimeandthecriticalratebyusinganovel3-Dhorizontalwellmodel.Basedonthehypothesisthatthehorizontalwellislocatedinanypositionofacircularreservoirwithno-flowboundaryonthetopofthereservoirandconstantpressureboundaryatthebottom,thehorizontalwellhasbeenregardedasaninfiniteconductivitylinesinkandthena3-Dsteady-stateflowmodelofthehorizontalwellissetup.ApointsinkpressuresolutioncanbeobtainedwiththeFouriertransform.Theresultofthepressuredistributionoftheuniformfluxhorizontalwellcanbepresentedbymeansoftheprincipleofsuperposition.Accordingtothestablewatercrestingtheory,thisstudyconfirmsthestableheightofwatercrestingandthecriticalrate.Meanwhile,itcanre-confirmthebreakthroughtimeataspecificrate.Theoutputofacomparisonbetweenthis3-Dmodelandthereservoirnumericalsimulator(Eclipse)showsthemethodpresentedherecanbeappliedtoinvestigatethebehaviorofawatercrestingandtopredictthebreakthroughtimeatthebottomwaterdriverreservoir.
