Mark Twain once said, "The art of prophecy is difficult, especially with respect to the future."

Mark Twain's remark summarizes management's challenge in deciding which E&P projects to pursue. Project outcomes are always prophecies fogged in uncertainty.

Risk-based methods have been developed to help pierce the fog and make better decisions.

This paper examines practical barriers to effectively using risk-based decision tools and provides guidelines to overcome the barriers.

Keywords:
optimization problem, practical issue, reliability, portfolio analysis, optimization, optimization model, artificial intelligence, investment, upstream oil & gas, quantity
Subjects:
Asset and Portfolio Management, Risk Management and Decision-Making, Information Management and Systems, Portfolio analysis, management and optimization, Decision-making processes
Copyright 2001, Society of Petroleum Engineers
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