Decline

Curve Analysis and Diagnostic Methods for Performance

Forecasting - DCA
Discipline: Reservoir Engineering
Level: Specialized
Instructors: Richard Henry, Stanley Kleinsteiber, Anil Kumar
Decline curve analysis has been called the most commonly used and misused technique
for forecasting future production and remaining reserves. This course will give the learner
a better understanding of how fundamental reservoir properties and drive mechanisms
affect the shape of the production decline curve and how to avoid many of the mistakes
commonly found in decline curve forecasts. The course also examines the use of modern
production decline type-curves to evaluate reservoir properties and predict future
performance. Students will make production forecasts and generate curve fit parameters
for the common curve types. These exercises will be done using MS Excel spreadsheets.
The course begins with an introduction and review of the classic exponential, hyperbolic,
and harmonic decline curve equations using a variety of plotting techniques. Next,
information is provided on how decline curve parameters relate to fundamental reservoir
properties and drive mechanisms. Then, transient and pseudosteady-state (pss) flow
regimes are identified along with how the classic decline equations apply only to pss
conditions. The participants will be taught methods to constrain transient forecasts to a
more realistic estimate of future production. Next, the class will review forecasting
techniques for wells undergoing fluid displacement drives such as waterflooding. Popular
techniques such as semi-log plots of water-oil ratio (WOR) versus cumulative oil
production will be discussed. The effects of parameters such as mobility ratio on the
shape of these trends will be reviewed. The effect of reservoir heterogeneities such as
layering and compartmentalization on the shape of the decline trend will be reviewed.
Methods to account for difficult situations such as downtime, well workovers, and facility
constraints are presented. Problems related to forecasting groups of wells instead of
individual wells are shown and ways to eliminate common forecasting mistakes are
identified. The final portion of the course is dedicated to advanced decline curve and
production data analysis. Historical background and development of the more popular
techniques such as Fetkovich, Blasingame, and Agarwal-Gardner curves is presented.
Example problems are used to illustrate how the decline type-curves can be used to
estimate reservoir parameters during both transient and stabilized production and how
these results are then used to forecast future performance. One personal computer is
provided, at additional cost, for each two participants in non-virtual sessions.
Who should attend:
Engineers or technical assistants who are responsible for making forecasts of future
production using decline curves analysis. Economists, managers, or geoscientists who are
interested in developing a greater working knowledge of decline curve methods and how

to make better forecasts will also benefit from this course.

You will learn:
Participants will learn how to:
Use the exponential, hyperbolic and harmonic decline curve equations - including
exercises to perform the calculations
See the relationships between reservoir recovery mechanisms and decline curve
types
Identify and understand how the transient flow period can lead to an overestimation of
reserves
Use multiple methods to avoid overestimating reserves
Recognize reservoir performance characteristics based on actual field examples
See the impact of reservoir heterogeneities such as faulting, permeability variance
and layering
Account for changing operating conditions
Perform analysis on a multi-well basis without introducing common errors
Use alternative methods including diagnostic performance plots (e.g., log WOR vs.
Np, Stagg's, P/Z vs. Gp, etc.) for rate and reserves analysis
Use advanced decline curve and production data analysis for reservoir
characterization: flow regime, hydrocarbons-in-place, permeability, skin, drainage
area, fracture properties, etc.
Topics Covered:
Conventional decline curve equations: exponential, hyperbolic and harmonic rate
versus time and rate versus cumulative production relationships, selecting the proper
equation based on reservoir properties and drive mechanisms
The effects of transient production: how to recognize transient production, how
transient forecasts can overestimate remaining reserves, how to properly constrain
transient forecasts
Forecasting during displacement processes: using trends like water-oil ratio and
versus cumulative oil production to estimate ultimate oil recovery, converting these
trends into an oil rate versus time forecast
Difficult situations: layered and compartmented reservoirs, downtime, workovers,
changing facility conditions and facility constraints, forecasting groups of wells,
common mistakes
Production decline type-curves: Introduction and historical background on production
decline type-curve methods, how to use modern decline type-curves to determine
reservoir properties during both transient and stabilized production, using type-curve
methods for forecasting future production
Instructors:
RICHARD HENRY has ten years management experience of multi-disciplinary teams
including construction projects, JIT manufacturing, and (petroleum) field audits. He has
sixteen years reservoir engineering experience including simulation, field management
and reserves determination, and thirty years experience in programming, software
engineering, and information technology. He holds a Bachelors of Science Industrial

Engineering and a Masters of Science in Petroleum Engineering from the University of the
West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad.

STANLEY KLEINSTEIBER is a Senior Petroleum Engineer with MHA Petroleum

Consultants Inc., a Denver-based petroleum consulting firm. He has over 24 years of
petroleum engineering experience. He has performed reservoir engineering studies in
numerous US basins, Canada and Australia, as well as co-developed an in-house gas
reservoir engineering course for clients such as BP, Japan National Oil Company (Tokyo),
and EGPC (Cairo). . He also directs continued development of MHA's GAS3D reservoir
simulator and software for production decline type curve analysis. His professional
experience includes: work related to exploration well testing in the Mediterranean Ocean
offshore Israel, performing field development studies for coalbed methane reservoirs in
the Bowen Basin of eastern Australia, and conducting well test analyses for exploration
wells in Hungary.
Prior to joining MHA, he held various reservoir engineering positions with Amoco
Production Company where he helped developed the initial plan of depletion for fields in
Wyoming and Utah using compositional numerical simulation. His specific contributions
were in the areas of fluid property characterization, well testing and simulation studies for
various development options. He has authored or co-authored papers dealing with
production decline type curve analysis, CO2 flooding, and depletion of a rich gas
condensate reservoir by nitrogen injection. He received a B.S. in petroleum engineering
from the University of Oklahoma in 1978.

Dr. Anil Kumar is Founder and President of Omak Technologies, an international

petroleum consulting firm located in Plano, Texas. He has extensive experience in the
domestic and international upstream oil and gas industry, including business and
technology management, operations, enhancing recovery from new and brown fields;
planning and acquisition evaluation; and upgrading of technical workforce of an
organization. Among many assignments, he has been an Engineering Manager, Planning
and Economics Manager, Senior Technical Advisor, has been involved in domestic and
international acquisition and merger activities, and in executive management as a Senior
VP for Reliance Industries Ltd. He is recognized as a strong technology and business
team builder, and excels in building collaborative relationships among diverse groups. He
has worked for Gulf Oil, Chevron, Mobil, Devon Energy in Indonesia, and Reliance. He
has been involved with the major oil and gas operations in Gulf of Mexico, West Texas
(Permian Basin), and international business and field operations in Norway, Aberdeen,
UK, Nigeria, Abu Dhabi, Malaysia, Indonesia and India. He has been responsible for the
planning of large offshore platform developments in Gulf of Mexico, and development of
deep water offshore fields in Indonesia and India: and engineering design and evaluation
of hundreds of drilling and work over proposals including horizontal wells with multi-stage
frac completions; initiation and management of tens of water floods, major CO2 and
polymer projects; and acquisition of oil and gas interests . He is recipient of the prestigious

SPE Formation Evaluation Award for 2013, and SPE Reservoir Engineering Award for
1997, was a SPE Distinguished Lecturer during 1995-96 , inducted as a Distinguished
Member in 2001, and presented the Engineer of the Year Award for 2005 by the Texas
Society of Professional Engineers. He was awarded the Kapitsa Medal of the Russian
Academy of Natural Sciences in 2001. He has published pioneering technical papers and
a research monograph on "Well Test Analysis under Water-Drive Conditions". He was
Chairman of the Petroleum and Mining Engineering Department at the New Mexico
Institute of Mining and Technology , and helped create the New Mexico Petroleum
Recovery Research Center, and has been an Adjunct Associate Professor at Tulane U.
He has a Ph.D. from Stanford University; an MS from Louisiana State University, and a
B.S. from Indian School of Mines, India, all in petroleum engineering. He has attended
MBA courses.

In-House Course Presentations

All courses are available for in-house presentation to individual organizations. In-house
courses may be structured the same as the public versions or tailored to meet your
requirements. Special courses on virtually any petroleum-related subject can be arranged
specifically for in-house presentation. For further information, contact our In-House
Training Coordinator at one of the numbers listed below.
Telephone 1- 832 426 1234
Facsimile 1- 832 426 1244
E-Mail inhouse@petroskills.com
Public Course Presentations
How to contact PetroSkills:
1-800-821-5933 toll-free in North America or
Telephone 1-918-828-2500
Facsimile 1-918-828-2580
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