I'm writing to ask if it is normal to see a very dramatic decrease in production. The Gore 1H-1X produced 27,900 barrels of oil in October 2015, !6,200 in Nov 2015, 8,000 in December and 6,400 in January 2016. While I expected a significant decrease, I did not expect a 75% decrease in 4 months. Is this actual or is it possible they have restricted the well due to market prices? Thank you in advance for any information you can provide.
It is possible that they have choked back the well due to market price. The well is on a pump, so they can control it. If the completion report is an indicator, they tested at half open choke and still had nice numbers. The pressure was not particularly high, so they need that pump. The operator is not one of the big guys, so don't know their strategy. A steep drop off is normal. A better indicator is the first total year of production. You can get a pretty good idea of performance with another few quarters of production.
Thank you Martha.
Typical decline is 70%, give or take, in year 1. I agree with MB: need to see first year of production. Best estimate of wells' EUR is when decline starts to level out and you can project decline curve for life of well. On the other hand, if they started on gas lift (don't know if these wells do), then you might see initial steep decline and then conversion to pump which increases production and then a decline from there.