GUIDE TO PRODUCTION FORECAST IN R3

PRODUCTION
FORECAST
Forecasting production plays a very
important role in determining the value of
your assets. R3 features numerous tools to
improve the efficiency of your workflows,
in both conventional and unconventional
reservoirs.

DECLINE CURVE
ANALYSIS
Decline curve analysis is a traditional means of predicting well
performance and well life, based on real production data.
R3 Graphics features the many necessary functions required to do quality
decline curve analysis on assets. Various templates are available,
including rate vs time and rate vs cum. There are five standard curve
types that can be fit to historical data - linear, hyperbolic, exponential,
harmonic and flat. Forecasts can be created with multiple segments.
Walk mode allows the user to traverse up and down a fit to get details at
any point in time, while the production data table gives monthly data of
the fit in tabular form. Numerous culling options are available, making it
very easy to include or exclude data.

ANALOGUE
TABLE
The analog table is a component which
stores the parameters for decline
curves. Each phase is shown, including
any defined ratios, and each curve
segment has its own line.
Multi-segment forecasts can be handled
as consecutive or overlapping. If you
have a fully defined segment and you
add an additional segment, then the
starting date and rate values of the new
segment are tied to the ending values
of the prior segment.
Or you can manually input the values for each segment, and
stagger the starting dates as little or as much as you wish. The
program will automatically calculate the undefined parameters
for a forecast segment, after a user inputs enough parameters.
ARCHIVE
FORECASTS
Comparing forecasts from year to year is
often part of the workflow for engineers. R3
can store prior forecasts as Archives, making
it easy to reapply them, and compare them
on a graph with current forecasts. The
Archive includes the data used in the fit so
you can see why the fits may differ from each
other. You can modify Archives to be shown
in different colors for easy tracking.

TYPE WELL
PROFILES
Engineers often find the need to generate Type Well Profiles from a group of
analogous wells to represent the forecasted behavior of new wells in a development.
R3 makes this really easy to do. Production profiles of one phase, with the option to
include forecasts, are normalized to first month of production. Data can be culled
and assets can be made active/inactive, until you have a representative data set of
your area. The provided QC Chart helps with this process, by showing the ratio of the
P10/P90 values for each month of data. Any values greater than 10 on this chart
represent a data set with a wide range of values, indicating wells that may not be
similar enough to group together. The Data Tab shows all data, including culled
points.
The Type Well Profiles can be generated using the Normal Distribution Method, or
the Empirical Distribution Method. The program generates data points for various
statistics of the data set – Mean, Max, Min, Mode, P10, P50, and P90. Using R3
Graphics, the user fits curves to some or all of these statistics, and saves the file.
The steps are easy to repeat for any additional phases, or groups of wells. Once a
TWP file is saved, it can be called up in Asset Manager, and any of the fits, IE P10, can
be applied as a forecast to an asset. This can be done manually, with our Well
Schedule tool, or within the Query Action Tool.

UNCONVENTIONAL
FORECASTING
R3 has several featured curve types to assist with forecasting unconventional resources.
First, a multi-segment forecast curve where a hyperbolic forecast switches to an
exponential forecast at a desired decline rate, for wells that experience multiple flow
regimes. Another curve offered is a Stretched Exponential Decline Curve, which is a
variation on traditional Arps that is better suited for unconventional reservoirs. (This
method always gives a finite EUR value, even if no abandonment constraints are used). A
third special curve type is the Duong Method curve, for use with reservoirs with low
permeability and long periods of transient flow.

GAS RESERVOIR EUR
FORECASTING
R3 offers tools to help you estimate the Expected Ultimate Recovery (EUR) for gas
reservoirs, using material balance methods. There are P/Z vs Cum. Gas templates, with
the ability to specify if you have a closed reservoir, an abnormal/high pressure reservoir,
or a water-drive reservoir.