Forecasting unconventional resource productivity - A spatial Bayesian model

Today's low prices mean that unconventional oil and gas development requires ever greater efficiency and better development decision-making. Inter and intra-field variability in well productivity, which is a major contemporary driver of uncertainty regarding resource size and its economics is driven by factors including geological conditions, well and completion design (which companies vary as they seek to optimize their performance), and uncertainty about the nature of fracture propagation. Geological conditions are often not be well understood early on in development campaigns, but nevertheless critical assessments and decisions must be made regarding the value of drilling an area and the placement of wells. In these situations, location provides a reasonable proxy for geology and the "rock quality." We propose a spatial Bayesian model for forecasting acreage quality, which improves decision-making by leveraging available production data and provides a framework for statistically studying the influence of different parameters on well productivity. Our approach consists of subdividing a field into sections and forming prior distributions for productivity in each section based on knowledge about the overall field. Production data from wells is used to update these estimates in a Bayesian fashion, improving model accuracy far more rapidly and with less sensitivity to outliers than a model that simply establishes an "average" productivity in each section. Additionally, forecasts using this model capture the importance of uncertainty—either due to a lack of information or for areas that demonstrate greater geological risk. We demonstrate the forecasting utility of this method using public data and also provide examples of how information from this model can be combined with knowledge about a field's geology or changes in technology to better quantify development risk. This approach represents an important shift in the way that production data is used to guide development decisions. Additionally, this method will enable other researchers to make better use of public production data—some of the largest datasets available on unconventional oil and gas development today—to evaluate the statistical impact of different geological and completion factors influencing production.