United States geological survey's reserve-growth models and their implementation

Abstract

The USGS has developed several mathematical models to forecast reserve growth of fields both in the United States (U.S.) and the world. The models are based on historical reserve growth patterns of fields in the U.S. The patterns of past reserve growth are extrapolated to forecast future reserve growth. Changes of individual field sizes through time are extremely variable, therefore, the reserve growth models take on a statistical approach whereby volumetric changes for populations of fields are used in the models. Field age serves as a measure of the field-development effort that is applied to promote reserve growth. At the time of the USGS World Petroleum Assessment 2000, a reserve growth model for discovered fields of the world was not available. Reserve growth forecasts, therefore, were made based on a model of historical reserve growth of fields of the U.S. To test the feasibility of such an application, reserve growth forecasts were made of 186 giant oil fields of the world (excluding the U.S. and Canada). In addition, forecasts were made for these giant oil fields subdivided into those located in and outside of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The model provided a reserve-growth forecast that closely matched the actual reserve growth that occurred from 1981 through 1996 for the 186 fields as a whole, as well as for both OPEC and non-OPEC subdivisions, despite the differences in reserves definition among the fields of the U.S. and the rest of the world. © 2005 International Association for Mathematical Geology.