*Previously presented at the IPA Annual Convention, J akarta 2010

SPE Paper Number SPE-133518-PP

UNCERTAINTY MANAGEMENT: A STRUCTURED APPROACH TOWARDS
RECOGNIZING, QUANTIFYING AND MANAGING SAMPLING BIASES IN
SUBSURFACE UNKNOWNS*
Laurent Alessio, Leap Energy Partners Sdn Bhd, Arnout Everts, Leap Energy Partners Sdn Bhd, and Faeez
Rahmat, Leap Energy Partners Sdn Bhd
Copyright 2010, Society of PetroleumEngineers
This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Asia Pacific Oil & Gas Conference and Exhibition held in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 1820 October 2010.
This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE programcommittee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been
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ABSTRACT
This paper illustrates, through field studies examples, why
and how a structured approach towards managing
uncertainties, and especially sampling biases, delivers
valuable insights through the successive early asset life
stages - exploration, appraisal and field development
phases. In doing so, we respond to three fundamental
questions.
Firstly, What are the key uncertainties those that
matter? Field studies should begin with a comprehensive
upfront assessment of uncertainties impact on historical
and future well and field performance. However, often
major factors are overlooked, leading to under-prediction
of true outcome ranges and the inability to reconcile
historical production. Our illustration is a large producing
carbonate field, where after 15 years of production, large
scale Karstification was finally evidenced to be the
explanation for the field performance that couldnt be
history matched with the measured matrix porosity and
permeability ranges.
Secondly What are realistic ranges for these
uncertainties? Known Industry best practices include
intensive expert-assist, integration of drilling, mud-logging
and other traditional sources of data from the field,
resorting to analogue benchmarking. Despite these, we
often fail to understand and correct for sampling bias,
which we show often leads to over-optimism. The paper
will highlight why such biases are present and propose
simple and practical methods to remove them. The case
study is the volumetric assessment of a gas discoveries
portfolio, where geophysical techniques were instrumental
in exploration and appraisal drilling.
Finally How these uncertainties will evolve with time?
This is an important question for assessing value of
Information: the impact that additional data may have on
the uncertainty range of uncertainties and the base case.
Unconventional fractured plays, often characterized by
data abundance but extreme variability, provide surprising
insights on how uncertainties ranges evolve. This paper
presents methods to develop confidence curves for
important parameters.
INTRODUCTION
This paper illustrates, through field studies examples, why
and how a structured approach towards managing
sampling biases in reservoir evaluation delivers valuable
insights through the successive early asset life stages -
exploration, appraisal and field development phases.
Whilst the purpose of the paper is not to provide a
comprehensive review of uncertainty management best
practices, a workflow and fundamental steps are discussed
herein, to provide some contextual framework. We then
focus our illustration around identification of key
uncertainties, defining realistic ranges for these, and
finally assessing how ranges should evolve with time.
The first step through the Uncertainty Assessment
workflow is Identification. Were essentially responding to
the question What are the key uncertainties those that
matter. Most subsurface professionals would agree on the
need for a comprehensive assessment of uncertainties
conducted upfront, and developing an understanding of
their impact on historical and future well and field
2 SPE-133518-PP
performance. However, often major factors are
overlooked, leading to under-prediction of true outcome
ranges and when applicable, the inability to reconcile
historical production. A field case of a very large
producing carbonate field, where after over 15 years of
production history, the main uncertainty impacting field
performance was found to an intense Karstification; a
factor that had been essentially overlooked until, as part of
a major field review, a comprehensive reservoir modelling
history match-ing exercise highlighted the impossibility to
obtain a match with the measured carbonate matrix
porosity and permeability ranges.
The second step in the workflow is Assess Ranges: this
equates to asking the following question what are realistic
ranges for these uncertainties? This is a very typical issue
for green field developments. Known and well
documented Industry best practices include intensive
expert-assist, integration of drilling, mud-logging, and
other traditional sources of data from the field, resorting to
analogue benchmarking. What remains generally an issue
is our ability to understand and correct for sampling bias
unfortunately at the early stage of the asset life, bias often
leads to over-optimism. The paper will highlight why such
biases are present and propose simple and practical
methods to remove them. The illustrating case is a
portfolio of clastics gas discoveries. Geophysical
techniques are often instrumental in exploration and
appraisal drilling, and as a consequence, assessing
sampling bias and correlations are a very important step in
the volumetric assessment.
The third and final question is how some of these
uncertainties will evolve with time. This is an important
question to answer for an adequate assessment of Value of
Information (VoI) but also to understand how much
impact should additional data have onto the range of
uncertainties, and of course, the base case. Fractured
resource plays, with their abundance of data but extreme
variability, provide surprising insights on how
uncertainties ranges evolve. This paper will present a
practical method to develop confidence curves for
important parameters.
UNCERTAINTY MANAGEMENT BEST
PRACTICES AND CONTEXT
Because of the inherent difficulty in understanding what
cannot be clearly seen and measured the subsurface, it is
recognized widely that managing uncertainties is critical to
E&P ventures, and therefore a very important
responsibility of the Subsurface and Front End teams. It is
by nature an inter-disciplinary capability that operators
must develop and apply across their assets.
As a consequence, fairly well established practices do
exist, and have been published in the past (Alessio et. al.,
2005); (Charles et. al., 2001); (Corre et. al., 2000), so it is
not the objective of this paper to provide a thorough
account of the best practices of uncertainty management,
but rather to focus on the particular aspect of sampling
bias and its impact on the uncertainty management
workflows.
Uncertainty management can be broken up into two main
phases: Assessment and Mitigation. Each of these can be
articulated around a number of steps: an account of those
is proposed in Figure 1. Sampling bias problems do occur
mostly in the Assessment phase, and so this is the part that
we will be focusing in this paper.
IDENTIFICATION OF UNCERTAINTIES
Ensuring all critical information and data is considered
Lets introduce the first problem: why despite elaborate
and rigorous workflows, using probabilistic and
geostatistical techniques (Charles et. al., 2001); (Corre et.
al., 2000), it still sometimes happens that field
performance expectations fall outside the P90/P10 range.
The first example provides an interesting case whereby a
producing field (which we will call Field X through this
paper) consistently out-performed expectations, and
couldnt initially be history matched conventionally,
despite the availability of a fairly extensive core dataset,
and post-drilling transient testing data on the early
production wells. Field X is a large, multi-Tscf, carbonate
gas field, located in a prolific carbonate province, in Asia.
Field Xs production started in 1987 from a total of 11
deviated wells placed in the central part of the field, drilled
on a dataset of multi-vintage, good quality 2D seismic.
Little was known about the detailed reservoir architecture
away from well penetrations. Following 15 years of
production and half of the expected reserves produced, a
3D survey was acquired in mid 2002 to support an infill
drilling campaign and a potential field re-development. At
the same time, the field review initiative started and whilst
seismic processing and inversion was carried out and
iterated, a first pass material balance and static-dynamic
modelling exercise was initiated.
These early static-dynamic modelling iterations rapidly led
to the conclusions that a combination of enhanced
permeabilities in the lower producing intervals and
possibly higher volumes were required to match (and slow
down) the combination of rise of contact and pressure data
in the field. This was in part consistent with the fact that
horizontal permeabilities derived from core data were
consistently lower than the well-test derived ones. In
addition, it was found that lower gas residual saturations in
these zones also improved the quality of the history match,
and so could greater gas volumes in that zone. This
indicated the possible role of a non-matrix element to
flow, either fractures or Karsts. In the earlier dynamic
models (pre-2002), permeability multipliers were applied
to layers to match the well test results, but neither the
mechanism nor the spatial distribution of the property
enhancements were properly understood.
SPE-133518-PP 3
As these observations were consistently reported from the
reservoir engineer back into the subsurface team, a new
hypothesis emerged: presence of an extensive Karsts
network in the lower part of the reservoir could explain the
required enhancement of properties of this zone
(permeability, storability and residual gas). A close
examination of the drilling history, back in the late 80s,
confirmed that nearly 80% of the wells suffered some
losses in this interval, and about 50% experienced very
severe losses. Following this lead, seismic multi-attribute
extractions revealed an extensive dendritic Karsts network
(Bourdon et. al., 2004); (L. Bourdon, 2004) covering the
vast majority of the Lower reservoir. Because of their
shear size and density, this imaged Karsts system could
finally explain the matrix property enhancement, in terms
of volumes, effective permeability, and petrophysical
property alterations.
The process of introducing a new facies (Karsts) provided
the team with a defendable, plausible, explanation for the
performance of the field, without reverting to arbitrary
transforms of the reservoir properties.
It is here interesting to acknowledge the sampling bias
issue with this case study: despite very early significant
observations that non-matrix properties had to be
responsible for themassive and consistent drilling induced
losses, this fact was not eventually carried through, as
knowledge, into the later phases of reservoir management.
Up until it was recognised that the field performance
couldnt be reconciled using the sampled ranges of
petrophysical parameters (porosity, permeability, residual
gas saturation), the uncertainty assessment work
essentially ignored a fundamental parameter. This is an
extreme case of sampling bias: the omiting of a critical
parameter!
The lessons learned from this case study are:
Ensure all possible sources of information are
considered in the first step of the Uncertainty
Assessment stage (Figure 1).
Field reviews must be a fully multi-disciplinary
exercise
Ensure a learning system is in place within the
organisation to ensure critical information is retained
DEFINING REALISTIC RANGES FOR
UNCERTAINTIES
What are realistic ranges for uncertainties?
In this part, the technical contribution of this paper is to
provide some practical insights, through another case
study, towards sampling bias presence in volumetric
assessment.
This case study depicts a fairly common situation where
exploration is conducted using seismic attribute high-
grading techniques, such as AVO, inversion etc. Direct
hydrocarbon indicators (DHI) have become a very popular
de-risking exploration application that has helped increase
dramatically the (Pg) probability of geological success
(Roden et. al.).
An indirect consequence of this improvement of
geological success is the introduction of a sampling bias,
within the fields that are being discovered. Not
dissimilarly to the basin creaming curve effect well known
to explorationists, guided exploration and appraisal
drilling has a tendency to produce a skew in the
petrophysical and geological sums and averages, for a
combination of the following reasons:
Early exploration wells are drilled on amplitude
highs which are hoped to and often do hold higher net
hydrocarbon volumes
Early exploration wells are drilled on structural highs,
to maximise the chance of encountering a charged
hydrocarbon column, hence encountering non-
representative elevated saturations
Delineation wells may be drilled down-dip to test
minimum economic columns, and therefore may find
low saturations
None of these remarks should come at a surprise to the
seasoned subsurface professionals. Accounting for such
biases is however not always straight-forward, will
involve elaborate data analysis and integration and may
actually emphasise remaining uncertainty in the field.
Case study: portfolio of gas discoveries, drilled through
DHI (Direct Hydrocarbon Indicators)
At an early appraisal stage, we are often confronted to a
dataset of wells that were predominantly targeted at
amplitude sweet spots. Removal of sampling bias will
typically start with obtaining statistics of the area covered
by sweet spots versus the total field area. This would
then be combined with either geologically and/or
geophysically driven estimates of the expected reduction
in net pay and/or reservoir properties in the seismically
dimmer areas compared to the sweet spots.
To illustrate the issue of dealing with a biased well dataset
consider the case study of Field Z, consisting of fluvial
and marginal marine sandstones in a three-way dip closure
with a bounding fault and possibly a stratigraphic trapping
component. An amplitude map of the main reservoir level
in Field Z is shown in Figure 3. Two wells were drilled to
appraise the structure and from the amplitude map, it is
obvious that both wells were specifically targeted at
reservoir sweet spots. The problem presented to the
asset team was to arrive at a realistic range in net pay for
the field despite the obvious bias in the well data. The
workflow followed by the team on this particular example
4 SPE-133518-PP
is one of the many possible methodologies. First,
geophysical analysis and seismic modelling studies
established that for the main reservoir in Field Z, the
thickness cut-off for seismically visible pay is around
3.5 to 5.5 m(about 1/8
th
of the seismic wavelength) whilst
the maximum constructive interference (i.e., brightest
amplitudes) are expected for a pay thickness of around 7
to 11 meter (around of the seismic wavelength). This
information was then used to consistency check and
complement the well data in establishing the relationship
between pay and seismic amplitude (Figure 4). Histograms
of amplitude distribution in the field were then used to
determine area weighed average amplitude for the
amplitude and non-amplitude supported domains in the
field, as well as ranges of pay expected in these two
domains. As expected, the range in pay for the amplitude
supported area of the field as estimated with this method
(Figure 4) is substantially less than the average of the two
wells.
Sampling bias and 3D geostatistical modelling
workflow
The issue of sampling bias is again at play when it comes
to more sophisticated resource assessment techniques
involving 3D reservoir modelling. Reason being,
commonly used techniques to stochastically simulate
reservoir and/or property distribution in 2D or 3D domain
such as Gaussian simulation, are designed to replicate the
statistics of the input data. If the input data consists of a
biased set of wells like in the example of Field Z, the risk
is this bias will be extrapolated to field scale. Whilst it is
true that modern mapping and 3D modelling tools do
provide ample mitigation options against this risk such as
use of areal trends, such sophistication is not always
applied especially not in fast track assessments (which,
not surprisingly, tend to lead to over optimism).
Moreover, without considering the possibility of the actual
statistics of pay and/or property distribution in the field
being different from what is seen in the wells, repeated
stochastic simulation in nested workflows - a popular
technique in modern field assessment - will simply
reproduce the well data - albeit with different areal
distribution - resulting in unrealistically narrow
uncertainty ranges for the field. In other words, to cover
the full range of outcomes for a field, it is important to
consider the possibility of a bias in the well data especially
if the data is scarce.
EVOLUTION OF UNCERTAINTY RANGES AS A
FUNCTION OF AVAILABLE DATA
A quantitative approach using Confidence Curves
Objective and problem
In this part, we are focusing specifically on highly
heterogeneous systems, such as highly fractured
carbonates, chalks, or unconventional reservoirs such as
tight sands, shales and coalbed methane. Were trying to
establish a systematic method to quantify, as a function of
the amount of data available, the uncertainty in a field
average metric, such as an average permeability, or peak
rate per well.
Variability and uncertainties
With highly heterogeneous systems, where large
differences are found from one observation (ex: a
given well) to another observation (a neighbouring well),
it is important to recognise the distinction between
variability and uncertainty, as these are two often confused
for one another, and thereby leading to significant
misrepresentations of field uncertainty ranges.
Variability is defined as a short to medium scale (up
to inter-well scale) variations of a given parameter,
such as permeability, porosity, gas content (for CBM
reservoirs), hydrocarbon saturation etc. These
variations can be often extreme, with several orders of
magnitude differences in permeability commonly
observed in fractured reservoirs. Variability is
intrinsic and non-temporal, which means it that does
neither change with time nor with the number of data
points, and it is a characteristic of the reservoir (for a
given sampling scale*). Ultimate understanding of
variability often remains spatially poorly predictive,
so the authors recommend a statistical approach is
always conducted in parallel.
Uncertainty is defined at the field scale, or at least, a
sector or segment of the field (field unit), where
multiple wells will be ultimately drilled. It represents,
at a given time, how well a field unit is understood.
Generally, uncertainty reduces with time and
information becoming available, provided the right
framing and uncertainty assessment was conducted
(ref previous section). Arguably, the uncertainty in
subsurface givens, such as field porosity average, or
in place volumes is strictly a consequence of our lack
of knowledge. Development related metrics, such as
field recoverable volumes or production performance,
at a given time, are a consequence of our level (or
lack of) of understanding of the subsurface and the
concept development choices we have made and will
be making.
*Note: variability is indeed intimately linked to sampling
scale; for the purpose of this paper, we are assuming that
all measures are taken at the same scale (ex: vertical wells
through a reservoir section), and we will not discuss this
point further.
A statistical representation of variability
Variability of a particular parameter can always be
represented by a PDF (Probability Density Function). In
our approach, we are using lognormal curves as those
describe well a number of naturally occurring phenomena
and parameters in the subsurface, such as permeability of a
SPE-133518-PP 5
fractured system. However, the approach can be used for
any statistical distribution, as were using a discretisation
of the curves to conduct our analysis. The Figure 7 shows
an example distribution (this is an illustration only and not
associated with a specific field or asset)
Developing the concept of confidence curves from a
practical observation
The idea of Confidence Curves emerged from a practical
observation of a resource play, where the variability of
production metrics such as peak production rates (gas,
water) was assessed. Because of the very large variability
of key subsurface parameters such as permeability usually
present in fractured resource plays, estimating field or area
performance with the knowledge of only a few wells
actual performance can be highly misguided, and lead to
erroneous conclusions on the attractiveness of an acreage.
In essence, this large variability, where peak rates or
permeability can vary well over a log cycle or more,
creates an intrinsic sampling bias when only a few samples
(wells) are available. This sampling bias must be
recognised, understood, and accounted for in the
assessment of expected field averages.
The problem at hand is as follows: having drilled a
number p of wells in an area where it is planned to drill a
total number n of wells, and having established key
subsurface parameters for each of these wells, what level
of confidence can we have in the averages computed from
these wells to be representative of the final n wells
average.
In trying to answer this question, the subsurface team
selected as an observation set a large enough area, that
could be considered fully drilled and developed by some
100 wells. Using some assumptions, productivity of each
well was calculated, and converted to an average well
permeability. It was therefore possible to create a
distribution of average well permeability over this area.
The workflow presented in this section was devised on a
real field case, but for the purpose of this paper, an
illustrative case with generic and non-case specific
numbers are used. The methodology is re-constructed
around this illustrative case. The parameter input PDF
(well permeability) that are used in the following sections
is shown on Figure 7 note this is illustrative variability
distribution curve was selected to have a variance that is
not uncommon of permeability in fractured reservoir plays
(P10/P90 >10)
Now, assuming the size of the area is significant enough,
i.e. 100 wells are a sufficiently large dataset, this
distribution can be taken as representative of the
variability of the field. This assumption only holds
provided that this area is itself representative of the rest of
the field, and we are not again suffering from a sampling
bias, at a larger scale!
Next, the following mathematical operations were applied
For a range of p values (p number of wells), within
the universeof n=100 values:
Compute a statistically significant number of
average values resulting from combinations of p
samples within n=100. Note that it is not easy to
compute all the possible ones: C
100
10
~1.7e13, so a
practical approach is called for. In our case, to keep
within spreadsheet limitations, a maximum of
30,000 simulations was used.
Plot the averages of p wells combinations against
the number of wells drilled p. The X-axis can also
be normalised to a normalised area by using p/n.
This plot will be called Parameter Uncertainty
Curves
An example plot of the resulting Parameter Uncertainty
curve is shown on Figure 5 Such curves can be read as
follows; note that as a parameter we are going to use
productivity:
In a given area, where eventually a number n
(100 for our example) of wells may be drilled, we
are looking at the possible values of averages of
p wells, chosen randomly.
We are essentially simulating the possible
outcomes of sampling randomly this resource
play and observing the range of hypothetical
trajectories of a computed average (Mean).
These curves provide a visual and quantitative assessment
of the possible trajectories of how averages of populations
of wells could evolve with the number of wells drilled.
The example shown on Figure 6, shows how a reservoir
engineer reviewing the results of early wells and
computing a average well curve (or type well curve),
could initially post a very high average, his assessment
falling victim of having sampled a few high outliers.
Then, with more drilling, the variability PDF curve is
sampled, and for the sake of this example, lets assume
now that the low end of the PDF is sampled
predominantly. In this case, the red trace would show the
assessment of a representative Mean based on the
population of wells available at give times.
This example is evidently selected to illustrate the point
that under large variability, as it is common with fractured
plays, there is a real possibility for extreme sampling
biases to occur and cloud a type curve assessment. This
has a particularly important implication for appraisal of
highly variable resource play:
If the play is expected to be very variable, then the
uncertainty at an early drilling phase is very
significant. In the example presented, the true
uncertainty when less than 5% of drilling has
occurred is ca. 3 fold. That means the final field
average may be within a factor 3 of the current
computed average (CCA).
6 SPE-133518-PP
The uncertainty decline rapidly with a few early
wells, since the process of drilling these wells
reduces swiftly the chances of sampling
consistently outliers in the same part of the curve
(either Hi or Lo). For the curves presented in this
example, this occurs in the first 5% of the drilling.
It may be possible to more rigorously generalise
this result, for various parameter variability input
PDFs.
The important findings at this stage are that, for highly
variable resource plays, where intensive drilling does
occur:
1. Assuming known the variability of an important
parameter (ex: well permeability), it is possible to
predict conceptually the uncertainty bands of a field
average vs. the amount of data and knowledge
available.
2. With highly variable plays, early information from
a few wells (<5% drilling of the play), can be very
misleading. Realistic uncertainty bands may be up
to within a 3-5 fold range of the mean of wells
drilled to date.
3. The uncertainty band decreased rapidly with the
first 10% of the wells and hit a pleateau with 20%
of the wells drilled (Figure 6). This suggests the
possible optimum early drilling well count of up to
20% of the total wells drilled in a target area as
increased well count wil not significantly reduce the
uncertainty.
Introducing the concept of Confidence Curves
We are introducing here a particularly effective manner to
construct quantitatively, versus available data or time, a
representative range for field-wide uncertainty metrics
such as P90, P10. Were also able to answer more
generally the following question:
For a given level of confidence (for instance 85%),
what is the level of uncertainty in the final field
average parameter (for instance permeability),
measured as a fold or multiplier of the current
measured average from the available data?
As a function of the available data collected to date.
In our approach, we are using as a measure the
percentage (%) of data available. For resource plays, a
percentage (%) of wells drilled can be used, if one
wants to assess the uncertainty in field overall well
rates or average field permeability.
Given our understanding of the variability:
importantly, a model of the statistics of the variability
needs to be known, or assumed. This can be achieved
either through a direct measure, or by analogy.
The resulting assessment can be plotted as shown on
Figure 7 where the confidence curves, expressed as a fold
of the current Mean can be represented vs. the percentage
of data available.
Applications of the confidence curves methodology
Confidence curves were initially devised for resource
plays, where large variability is present and uncertainty is
known to remain high after appraisal and only
progressively reduce through the development phase. They
provide a structured way to conduct three main
assessments:
Uncertainty levels as a function of available data, and
therefore determining a realistic field uncertainty
range from an understanding of variability.
Determine the value of information for new data; VoI
can be expressed in terms of field uncertainty
reduction potential. VoI's can actually be statistically
assessed (this will be developed in a future
publication).
Determine if areas within the resource play can be
justifiably high-graded or down-graded statistical
representativeness can again be determined fromthe
use of confidence curves.
Future areas of study
The technical contribution of this papers section on
confidence curves is limited to understanding their basic
construction and simply highlighting their possible
applications. Future work will be focus on developing
further the key applications areas of these curves.
SPE-133518-PP 7
CONCLUSIONS
We have presented, through examples, how critical are the
Uncertainty Identification and Range Assessment phases
in the Uncertainty Management Workflow (UMW), and
provided a number of tools and approaches to improve the
recognition, assessment and management of subsurface
unknowns.
Firstly, we have shown how key subsurface features may
be omitted if not all data and information sources are
considered; the necessity of a multi-disciplinary approach
is highly recommended, in order to reduce this risk.
Secondly, we are providing clear examples of how
sampling bias creeps into the subsurface assessment work,
and provided practical illustration on how this
phenomenon can be accounted for and removed. Thirdly
and finally, we have proposed a method to quantify
uncertainty based on an understanding of variability vs.
available date, using Confidence Curves.
The methodologies and practical solutions to the problem
of sampling bias in quantifying uncertainty ranges for
subsurface assets have been illustrated through case
studies inspired from actual field reviews, field
development planning projects and other subsurface
assessments; note that for the purpose of this paper, all
confidential information has been duly removed by the
authors, data, maps, well results have all been suitably
altered so that no sensitive information is made public.
8 SPE-133518-PP
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Peter Friedinger and Artur Ryba for
providing valuable insights and support for the production
of this paper.
Special thanks to Indonesian Petroleum Association (IPA)
for granting permission to publish this paper.
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uncertainties. SPE 68703.
M. Feraille, F. Roggero,E. Manceau, L.Y. Hu, I. Zabalza-
Mezghani, L. Costa Reis, Application of Advanced
History Matching Techniques to an Integrated Field Case
Study. SPE 84463
Eide, L. Holden, E. Reiso, S. Aanonsen, 1994, Automatic
History Matching by use of Response Surfaces and
Experimental design, ECMOR 7-10 J une 1994
T. Egeland, E. Hatlebakk, L. Holden, E.A Larsen,
Designing Better Decisions, 1992, SPE 24275.
Saxena Umesh, Vjekoslav Panelic, Factorial Designs as an
Effective Tool in Mining and Petroleum
Engineering,1971, SPE 3333.
Sawyer et al, Factorial Design of Wet combustion drive,
1974, SPE 4140
R. Roden, M. Forrest, Roger Holeywell. DOI- 19983, DHI
Threshold Effect in Prospect Risking
SPE-133518-PP 9
Figure 1: Uncertainty Management Worflow (UMW) : Uncertainty Assessment and Mitigation workflows
Figure 2 : Addition of Karstification as a significant parameter allows a match to be obtained
Identify
Uncertainties
Quantify
ranges
Assess
impact
Rank
Select
representative
uncertainties
Construct
models
Test
concept
scenarios
Develop
mitigation
plans
Unc er t ai nt y assessment w or k f l ow
Unc er t ai nt y mi t i gat i on w or k f l ow
U
n
c
e
r
t
a
i
n
t
y

M
a
n
a
g
e
m
e
n
t

W
o
r
k
f
l
o
w

(
U
M
W
)
10 SPE-133518-PP
Figure 3 : Amplitude map of field Z. The two appraisal wells drilled to date both used the seismic to target reservoir sweet spots.
The result is a clear example of a biased well dataset. Map and well locations have been altered from actual case study to ensur
Well 2
Well 1
Amplitude map Field Z
Map has been altered from actual case
SPE-133518-PP 11
Figure 4 : Histogram of amplitude values in field Z derived from the map shown in Figure 3 Indicated are the pay seen in the wells,
the estimated pay cutoff for seismically visible pay and the optimum tuning thickness range. All of these were used by the asset
Figure 5 : Parameter Uncertainty Curves: plotted below is the relative parameter value vs. the sample size (ranging from 1 to 100)
Relatively bright
= Amplitude supported
Relatively dim
= Non-Amplitude supported
Well-2
(12.8 m pay)
Amp Range
Well-1 (6 m pay)
Amp Range
Area weighed average of
amplitude supported domain
Amplitude value =2.1
4.9 7.7 m pay (P90-P10)
Limit of visible pay
=1/8 seismic
wavelength
=3.5 5.5 m pay
Lower amplitude area
Lower pay 1-5 m range (P90-P10)
Maximum
constructive
interference
=1/4 seismic
wavelength
=7 11 m pay
Bright Very Bright
(Brightest 5%)
C
u
m
u
l
a
t
i
v
e

%
1
0
0
0
0.0
0.1
1.0
10.0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
CALCULATION OF AVERAGES
NoSamples50
NoSamples1
NoSamples2
NoSamples4
NoSamples6
NoSamples8
NoSamples10
NoSamples15
NoSamples20
NoSamples25
NoSamples30
NoSamples35
NoSamples40
NoSamples45
Nosamples100
Parameter Uncertainty Curves
Relative parameter value vs. Sample size (1 to 100)
Envelop of maximum deviation to the
final mean (for 100 wells)
Mean for the total population
(100wells), Normalisedto 1
12 SPE-133518-PP
Figure 6 : Possible trajectory of averages vs. Parameter Uncertainty Curves: showing in red a possible, although not very likely,
trajectory of population well averages
Figure 7 : Variability PDF curve for well parameter (permeability, mD): this is a possible illustration only of a well variability,
which was used for the computation of the Uncertainty and Confidence curves
0.0
0.1
1.0
10.0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
CALCULATION OF AVERAGES
No Samples 50
No Samples 1
No Samples 2
No Samples 4
No Samples 6
No Samples 8
No Samples 10
No Samples 15
No Samples 20
No Samples 25
No Samples 30
No Samples 35
No Samples 40
No Samples 45
No samples 100
Parameter Uncertainty Curves
Relative parameter value vs. Sample size (1 to 100)
A possible trajectory of computed
averages from drilled wells
This example assumes that (Hi) outliers are drilled
early, and later wells are sampled in the low end of
the variability curve
(Final) Mean for the total population
(100wells), Normalisedto 1
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
1.00 10.00 100.00 1000.00
C
u
m
P
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y
Well parameter -permeability (mD)
illustrative well parameter PDF
well permeability distribution curve (generic and non-specific
case)
Example PDF well K (mD)
This example assumes a P10/P90
range of 10 fold, which is not
uncommon in fractured resource plays
This is the VARIABILITY curve
SPE-133518-PP 13
Figure 8 : Confidence Curves: charting confidence folds (as a % certainty) vs. % data available
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
%

C
o
n
f
i
d
e
n
c
e

i
n

F
i
e
l
d

M
e
a
n
%Data available
Plot 1: Evolution of Confidence Curves (varyingfolds) vs. %data available
1.10
1.25
2.00
3.00
5.00
7.00
9.00
10.00
88% confidence in a fold of 2.00
At 10% data available (% well drilled)
40% confidence in a fold of 1,25
At 10% data available (% well drilled)