Application of Type Curve Procedures for the Analysis of Production Data from Geothermal Wells

Abstract

It has been already shown that the decline curve analysis approach can be successfully applied to geothermal wells. It was shown in Reference 1 that plotting monthly production vs. time on either semilog or log-log paper together with the rate decline models given by Arps3, it was possible to predict the future production of wells of the Cerro Prieto Geothermal Field. This paper show that production forecasting can also be performed by an entirely graphical procedure. The procedure is based on the use of a basic dimensionless graph which was developed by Fetrovich. He found that rate decline models developed by Arps3 could be placed on a single log-log type curve. The aim of this paper is to show how this graph was used to handle production data from some wells of the Cerro Prieto Geothermal Field. The procedure agreed with those obtained from that procedure reported before.