Abstract
In the current climate of continuing low oil prices and with many fields in decline, it is becoming increasingly important for operators to maximise daily production of oil and gas. Ideally this needs to be done with low or minimal capital investment. Many different ways of achieving this have been documented in the literature, ranging from reservoir management through well work, offline data-driven and physics-based modelling to advanced control.
In this paper, we focus on the use of physics-based models and mathematical optimisation to maximise production through the identification of operational changes on the asset, whilst satisfying the operational constraints and without adversely affecting long term reserves recovery. Our emphasis is on physics-based (rather than statistical) models, since these are designed to predict how an asset will operate in regimes where it has never previously been operated. This allows the identification of new regimes, which may be counter-intuitive, in which increased daily production can be achieved.
