Production Decline Models: A Comparison Study

Abstract

Abstract Erroneous reserve estimates associated with improper application of Arp's relations has led to the development of alternative rate-time models based on empirical considerations. These models can equally provide good fits for only limited duration production data, but they yield significantly different 30-year-estimated ultimate recovery (EUR). In our previous work, we extensively demonstrated the reliability of cumulative-production model to analyze the production performance of fractured dominated tight and shale reservoirs. In this paper, a number of real field examples are used to generate 30-year-EUR estimates using different rate-time models as well as a production-decline model. Results show that some of rate-time models overestimate EUR with more than 150% compared with the cumulative production-decline model which yields correct estimates in most of the cases.