The oil and gas industry has been dealing with the unconventional reservoirs for about only two decades. Consequently, many challenges remain in evaluating the unconventional reservoirs. A few of these obstacles are the absence of the adequate production history, understanding the fluid flow regime after hydraulic fracturing, and estimating the drainage volume of the reservoir. One of the essential elements for evaluation of the oil and reservoir is to estimate the production rates over time in order to investigate the economic potential of the project.
Decline Curve Analysis (DCA) is most common the methodology for predicting the production rates over the time based on past production data. However, conventional DCA methods cannot be applied to unconventional reservoir due to lack of sufficient and consistent past production history. Accordingly, several DCA methods (Arps, PLE, SPED, and Duong) have been proposed to estimate the production over time for unconventional reservoirs. However, their reliability and accuracy remain uncertain.
In this problem report, field production data from hydraulically fractured horizontal wells completed in Marcellus Shale will be analyzed using different DCA methods for unconventional reservoirs. Accordingly, this will lead to a better understanding which DCA method can provide accurate predictions of the future production rates from the unconventional reservoirs
