Decline curve analyses revisited

Empiricaldecline curve forecasts of future production rates and cumulative production to be expected from certain classes of petroleum reservoirs has been a methodology practiced and relied on by petroleum geologists for many years. New ways to consider the subject are described in this paper. Thereby it is seen that these forecasts sometimes can be made even when some of the record of the past performance history is sparse (say, because it has been lost, or never recorded).SI Units D, D _i initial reference production rate,s ^–1 - n dimensionless constant cf. Eq. (1)] - N cumulative production, m³ - Q, Q _i production rate att and initially, m³/s - R dimensionless time variable cf. Eq. (9)] - t time, s