Decline Curve Analyses and Oil Production Forecast

Any oilfield has a timeline of production history. There are three phases of its production life since first drop of oil till the end of production. First phase is the growth phase, the production will grow fast, other successful wells will help production grow fast and more tonnes of oil will come to surface. Then, with the years passing by, the growth will slow down and the second phase will come. This period will take some 10- 15 years, some time more, it depends on many factors geologic, economic, reservoir characteristics, company policy and state regulations. The second phase is the plateau phase. The production will be almost unchanged. During this period, maybe more wells may enter in production, but old wells will produce less oil, so we will have almost the same amount of oil produced. The third phase is the decline phase, almost all the wells will produce less oil. A concern of high interest for the company will be to forecast the future production of oilfield. During all the phases of oilfield production there is some method of forecasting future production. DCA is the most successful method to do that during the third phase. In our paper we will use DCA method to study production data from Marinza Oilfield in order to find the DCA model and predict the production for the following years.