O&G Operators & Mineral Owners Proprietary Well-Level Production Data is Now Accessible

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Oil & gas production data challenge

Anyone who has worked with oil & gas data knows that a huge amount of production data is available in the L48 states, as all energy producing states have an agency that requires the reporting of well engineering and production data. Unfortunately, the accuracy of this data is a challenge for states that do not report well-level production data such as Texas and Louisiana. These states report production for leases, which can consist of dozens or even hundreds of wells.  For example, the Texas Railroad Commission, responsible for regulating the oil & gas industry in Texas, may report that the ‘Plainview’ lease, with fifty wells, produced 100 thousand barrels of oil last August, but there is little information about how much each of these wells actually produced.

Limitations of current solutions

Novi Labs and other data vendors have built advanced algorithms that use well header data and other types of reported data (e.g. well tests) to figure out the most likely contribution from each individual well, for each production stream, for every month, to these reported lease totals. But the signal is pretty weak in a large number of cases, and we have found that typical monthly errors for individual wells are often between 10% to 20%, sometimes even greater.

This is not a major problem for a high-level analysis, as the sum of the production for all the wells will still match the reported lease level production total (with a few exceptions). However, for anyone trying to forecast production for individual wells, analyze well performance, or conduct a detailed economic analysis, inaccurate well production presents a significant challenge.

 

Production data sharing in Novi’s Insight Engine

To address these and other issues with reported production data from state agencies, Novi Labs has licensed production data from its operator and royalty customers. The license allows Novi to publish proprietary data provided directly by these companies on a monthly basis. Starting in late 2022, Novi has amassed a database of several thousand wells.

 

In the below image, you can see the impact of the proprietary data in the Midland Basin. Of the almost 17 thousand horizontal wells in this area, Novi publishes the actuals for over 3,500 wells producing more than half a million barrels a day.

Production sharing coverage in the core of the Midland Basin. The charts on the right show in green the portion from wells in production sharing.

Within the state of Texas, our proprietary production data covers more than 13% of total unconventional oil production.

For wells in the proprietary data set, instead of using allocated data from the state, we perform quality assurance monitoring and then publish the data directly. We also compare this data with all the well & lease data which the state has reported and detect outliers or identify any discrepancies. We are automatically alerted when there are significant changes in the data provided by our customers, so that we can investigate and address any identified issues. We also use these proprietary data to better infer the production data from nearby wells!

Novi Insight Engine users can : 

• Access the most accurate production data possible, using proprietary sources that cannot be accessed anywhere else.
• Accurately analyze well performance, improve investment decisions, and minimize work forecasting around noisy allocated data.
• Easily identify which production data points came from production sharing, and which ones do not.

 

Improved Lease Allocation Production Data

In addition to implementing the proprietary production offering, we’ve also spent significant time improving our lease allocation methods, which are still used for all other wells in states where production is reported on the lease level.

Novi Labs now has the most accurate allocated production data for oil, gas and water without taking into account our licensed proprietary data. When you add the wells that Novi has licensed proprietary data, the advantage in accuracy is magnified substantially.

If high quality, accurate production data is important in your workflow, Novi will be your best data subscription provider to partner with.

 

Conclusion

Proprietary production data is an innovative offering designed to address the accuracy issues associated with reported production data from state agencies. By partnering with operators and mineral holders, Novi Labs is able to republish actual production data provided by these companies on a regular basis, drastically reducing errors and uncertainty in forecasting and economic analysis.

Novi plans to continue partnering with operators and royalty companies to extend this proprietary data advantage for its customers.

If you’d like to learn more about production data or any of Novi’s other offerings, please reach out to us: https://novilabs.com/

Edited February 8, 2023 by shaleprofile