Statistical Analysis and Dynamic Visualization of Travis Peak Production in the Eastern Texas Basin

Gas production has increased exponentially over the last 30 years, which is in response to the increasing demand for natural gas. This trend is speculated to continue to increase as legislation continues to be passed requiring power plants to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions. This recently happened in Colorado according to the Washington Post, giving more consideration to using natural gas. As natural gas becomes more popular there is a need to understand the production patterns and observable trends, integrating data from various sources. This research will attempt to do just that for wells producing from the Travis Peak formation. Using data from HPDI L.L.C., (www.hpdi.com) a visual representation was created for the areal distribution of peak gas rates and cumulative gas production. This allowed us to categorize wells by their production performance and we found that areas with relatively high peak gas rates also had high cumulative gas production. An analysis of these wells was done by completion year, and we found that wellhead prices of natural gas strongly influenced the annual number of new wells. We also found that the distribution of the annual number of new wells affected the average annual initial production rate and the peak gas rate of new wells. Wells located in areas of poor production performance were analyzed and it was apparent that newer wells performed relatively better than older ones and well stimulation is a major requirement for better gas production. Wells located in areas of good production performance were also analyzed and we found that the distribution of newer wells to older ones influenced the relative performance of individual wells. Overall, there was no observable trend between production variables in Travis Peak. No trend in production variable was found to be exclusively associated with good performing wells or poor performing wells.