Integrating Production Analysis With Monte Carlo Simulation for Estimated Ultimate Recovery EUR Prediction

Abstract

Abstract The current scheme for developing shale reservoirs necessitates special considerations while estimating the reserve. While reservoir characteristics lead to an extended infinite acting flow regime, completion schemes could result in a series of linear flows. Therefore, the initial linear flow does not have to be followed by a boundary-dominated flow. Overlooking this observation leads to unphysical Arps’ exponents and overestimations of the Estimated Ultimate Recovery (EUR). We are proposing a workflow to overcome these challenges and honor the inherited uncertainty while using the classic Arps (1956) hyperbolic forecast. Our workflow starts with identifying the current flow regime of the well where two intermediate flow regimes are considered, namely Linear-post-Linear (LPL) and Linear Post Linear Post Linear (LPLPL) flow regimes. We deterministically forecasted the boundary-dominated wells and probabilistically forecasted the rest. We used the distribution of the current flow regime in the field to forecast the transient wells. The well features of the infinite/semi-infinite wells are stochastically sampled from the field database combining well features of the boundary-dominated wells. After that, Monte Carlo simulation is employed to probabilistically estimate the EUR. We constrained the well life by an economical limit or a maximum of 40 years. Bone Springs formation is selected for a field study of this workflow. We found that the LPL is the common current flow regime. A reduction in Arps’ exponent is observed when well experience an intermediate linear flow before boundary-dominated flow. Significant number of interference wells are identified through their Water/Oil Ratio (WOR) signature. We also studied the evolution of EUR which suggests that more than 75% of the production history is needed for the deterministic methods to provide reliable estimates of the EUR. We generated heat maps of the area of interest to summarize the EUR and remaining reserve results.