Initial Production - Nothing to get excited about?

So basically, these numbers are not anything to hang your hat on to calculate monthly projections?

EOG Resources Reports Production On Six Barnett Shale Wells

EOG Resources (EOG) reported the production results for six wells drilled into the Barnett Shale combo play in Montague County in Texas. The names and the initial production rates of these Barnett Shale wells are:

Ketchum Unit #1H – 496 barrels of oil and 354,000 cubic feet of natural gas per day.

Ketchum Unit #2H - 638 barrels of oil and 455,000 cubic feet of natural gas per day.

The Farrell Unit A #1H, Farrell Unit A #2H, Farrell Unit B #3H and Farrell Unit B #4H wells had initial production rates ranging from 335 to 475 barrels of oil per day and from one million to 1.4 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

Initial production volumes are sketchy at best. There is no standard as to when they are recorded. They may be ther first day the well produced, the first full day of production, or perhaps the highest recorded volume in the first month. Unless working with coal bed methane, the initial production rates are almost always the highest volume the well will produce. In order to accurately predict future production, you will need many months or production data to construct a reasonable production forecast.

What I thought and then that will be affected by the RRC allowables. So as I see it - there's really no way to get data that would provide a reliable prediction.

It is my understanding enough data exists to reasonably predict annual decline rates for oil production in the Eagle Ford. I know this is not a production prediction but it is an important number in the prediction equation.

I was reading another forum (gohaynesvillshale.com or eaglefordforum.com) where decline rate data (not production) was around 35% annually. This trend continued for years two and three. Year four the wells apparently level out in production. I am not sure if these numbers are accurate but one of the posters took it upon themselves to crunch the numbers. I think they used Petrohawks numbers since they were one of the first in the Eagle Ford play.