lack of understanding

we shut in wells, if they are not making money. we are forced, by regulatory agencies, to plug wells after a certain time of inactivity. why would we try to displace the time to plug a well? it comes down to economics.

wells/land/ownership, in the US, are leased from private/federal owners. generic law is that as long as it produces (at economic quantities), the lease is held under the original documents. if it is uneconomic, the lease becomes invalid. the lease is released. think PUGH clause. so one well, containing a lease acreage greater than attributed to one well, can maintain a lease. i can produce a well for a couple barrels a month to keep a lease that maintains a lease of 40 acres, or 320 acres. depends on how the original documents were drafted. no conspiracy, just business and evolution of contract law. remember that lawyers were drafting lease documents from the seat of their pants 100 years ago.

wells tend to produce, initially, by depletion drive. not all. there are other drive mechanisms. this affects what the expectations on recovery is.

if you only recover 10% of the original oil in place (OOIP) through depletion drive, why would you spend a bunch of money if there are potentially ways of recovering additional oil? economics. and yes 10% is a reasonable expectation globally average for depletion drive reservoirs. look it up. it's greater for a water drive.

that's what i do. what is the recovery? what can we do to increase the recovery? is there meat left on the bone. there are many different methods to enhance recovery, but they are cost-intensive.

it's not deception, really. it's a misunderstanding of what is possible, economically.

let's talk about 2 key concepts. 1; what is available original oil in place (OOIP) and 2; what rate can it be delivered (Darcy). this drives what is known as rate of return (ROR) and expected ultimate recovery (EUR). two vastly different calculations, based on a time function, due to the time value of money (cost of capital).

So...when the pressure has been drawn off of the reservoir, and deliverability is reduced, what is left. How can we get it?

We do that through secondary and tertiary recovery. These are know as waterflooding and CO2 flooding. others are polymer and surfactant polymer flooding. There are others.

So, if you have a well that comes in at a certain rate, it will decline as the resource is drained. At some point, it will decline to a point where it is uneconomic to operate and make money. Then, we evaluate whether or not we can manipulate the rock to recover more oil/gas from the rock. This is driven by economics.

https://wiki.aapg.org/Reserves_estimation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darcy's_law