Breakfast Series: Unconvential Forecasts and Type Wells (Part 2 of 3): Production Rate Scaling

Ideal analogs for predicting results for future drill campaigns are often unavailable or are few in number because we continuously optimize drilling and completion design to improve return on investment. Scaling is a tool to alter prior historical production to reflect what might happen with different design parameters: number of fractures, completed well length, permeability, reservoir pressure, and proppant volume. We base the proposed methods on expected physics, and they have proved useful with limited testing.

The lecture will discuss the production rate scaling principles and demonstrate three distinct uses:

Adjust the historical and predicted rate-time profile from analogs to use in constructing a type well.
As a diagnostic tool, scaling will help to identify completion parameters that are unknown such as the number of open fractures from wells that have been cluster fractured.
In combination with economics, we may use scaling criteria to optimize well design.