As a matter of typical oil and gas business (producers) practices, do some companies hold back initial production for a few months until things at the well site settle down. I am thinking that a company may be adjusting the flow until the pressure stablizes or some such thing. I may be way off the bubble here?
Bob
The operator has the option to produce anywhere from the minimum to the maximum rate of production on any well. Some operators like to bring wells on slow and some operators want a great IP to please shareholders. For example I have two wells in a 2 section spacing in Dunn county ND, one has produced 172k barrels in the past year starting from an IP of 2,695 bbl and the second IP'd at 515 bbl and produced under 13k bbl in total, until last Sept, when it produced 14,800 bbl in 15 days, almost double the IP rate for 15 days, when new Bakken wells can DECLINE 30% a month. The interesting thing is that the well that produced 172k bbl, the production dropped to 3,500 bbl, a 50% reduction from the previous month, not natural decline for a Bakken well that is already a year old. The operator controls production and you will never know what the well actually could do but you can look for signs and try to make an educated guess. I can think of reasons why an operator would limit production, some would just be good business.
Robert:
I agree with r w kennedy completely in that some operators want to impress the shareholders, etc. with large IP's. If you look at the history of some operators in the Bakken, this is very evident. Some operators such as Brigham Exploration has always had a history of very large IP's while others in the same vicinity tend to have IP's of 1/2 or less that amount. Guess it worked well for Brigham as StatOil purchased the company for billions of dollars and I'm sure that this was one of the many factors that played into this sale. The decline curve will set in on all these wells, some worse than others, until possibly a downhole pump is installled to boost production. I don't hang my hat on what the IP's look like as it is more important to see what's going on two to three years down the road.
Sometimes I've thought the operator reported production prior to fracking so that nobody would know what they had until they picked up more leases.
Happens all the time, both for business and scientific reasons. Is called "tight holing" a well.
Thanks for the information, more that I anticipated. The well that I am referring to in Weld County CO, has only produced 84, 288, 234 and 187 barrels of oil per month thus far. I was thinking that a savvy oil company would have pretty much figured out the potential before poking a hole in the ground, given the cost of surveys, drilling etc. and this very small amount sure doesn't bode well for planning. Two or three years down the road is where we are going with this I am sure .
Thanks again for the replies,
Bob