Resumen
The geometry of oil wells can be decisive for the generation of undesirable residues in the oil and gas production. One of these residues is the produced water, which has increased its volume in the oil fields, becoming a great environmental challenge for the fields managers. Therefore, the objective of this research is to analyze the influence of oil wells types in the generation of produced water. The research was developed in 80 onshore oilfields, in production phase, at the Potiguar basin, considering the years 2014, 2015 and 2016. A conceptual model was formulated with three hypotheses, using multivariate regressions. The results indicated an increasing average of 0.5% (2014 and 2015) in the produced water volume, when 1 vertical well was added to the project; and 1.91% (2016) for each directional well introduced in the project. The age of the field was the most influential variable in the research, reaching, in the year 2015, an effect of 13.7% on the produced water generation.