A method for operating an oil deposit based on a technique of positioning wells to be drilled is disclosed. Based on a grid representative of the petrophysical properties of a subterranean formation through at least one well is drilled, a reservoir simulation is performed up to a time for which production of the formation being studied is to be predicted. Then, attributes are selected that are representative of the flows in the formation and a classification of these attributes is performed. Then, a quality indicator is computed for each of the classes and at least one class is selected such that its quality indicator is greater than a first threshold.