The Eagle Ford Shale is emerging as the foremost "liquids-rich" shale play in North America.  As such, the use of production data analysis in the Eagle Ford Shale has tremendous importance in:

 

●Determining well/reservoir properties;

●Establishing completion effectiveness; and

●Estimating future production.

 

The Eagle Ford Shale presents additional difficulty in the form of fluid behavior characterization.  Near-critical PVT behavior (as in the case of the Eagle Ford Shale) is an important component of well performance, which cannot be overlooked during analysis and modeling.  This talk addresses the common challenges encountered during production analysis and modeling of the Eagle Ford shale wells.  In particular, we will present the differences observed in production forecast due to characterization of the fluid.  This talk presents guidelines on how to perform diagnostics, analysis and forecast of the wells in the Eagle Ford shale considering the variability in fluid properties.  We present diagnostic interpretations of various wells (ranging from lower to higher initial yield values), and demonstrate model-based production analysis using non-linear numerical simulation for specific wells.  Furthermore, we investigate the long term yield behavior by running sensitivities to various drainage area and pressure drawdown cases.