Valuation of Technology and Information for Reservoir Risk Management

Abstract

Summary Reservoir risk management involves optimizing assets given inherent reservoir uncertainties and minimizing risk by reducing these accordingly. The decision to implement any reservoir management technology is usually based on some form of cost-benefit analysis. Consequently, the correct valuation of value-adding technology (often based on net present value, or NPV) becomes a significant part of a reservoir management process. This paper discusses techniques for the valuation of technology and information related to reservoir risk management. For demonstration purposes, these techniques are applied to valuation of real-time control and monitoring technologies in a reservoir with multiple uncertainties in its physical properties. Because of the presence of these uncertainties, value quantification requires a stochastic optimization of the reservoir production strategy, where the objective function includes a risk-aversion factor. By applying these techniques, one can generate a decision-making table that shows the benefit of implementing a technology at various confidence levels. One can then extend the analysis further to estimate the added value to the reservoir if the uncertainties were to be reduced (or even eliminated) by implementing appropriate monitoring technologies. This process enables quantification of the value of information and is useful in designing monitoring strategies.