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Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology, Vol.45, No.5, 55-59, 2006
Parameter sensitivity study of a statistical technique for fast infill evaluation of mature tight gas reservoirs
With the increasing demand for natural gas and higher prices, more and more gas basins within North America are undergoing infill drilling. It is not uncommon for a company to have hundreds or thousands of infill candidates to choose from. But quantifying the drilling or recompletion potential in large producing gas basins is often a challenging problem, due to large variability in rock quality, well spacing, and well completion practices, and the large number of wells involved. Complete integrated reservoir studies to determine infill potential are often too time consuming and costly for many large tight gas basins. In previous work, we evaluated the accuracy of a statistical moving-window technique that had been used in mature tight gas formations to assess infill and recompletion potential. We compared the moving window infill well predictions to those from reservoir simulation. Results indicated the technique accurately predicts the combined infill production estimate from a group of infill candidates, often to within 10%. Here, we report on a reservoir parameter sensitivity study and show that the accuracy of predicted infill performance decreases as heterogeneity increases and increases as the number of wells in the project increases. Also, the search area and well spacing have a large effect on the accuracy of estimates from the statistical method. Because of its speed, accuracy, and reliance upon readily available data, however, the statistical technique can be a useful screening tool for large infill development projects.