Key words: sensitivity analysis, production profile, interpolation scheme
The work presented in the paper is on business planning and economics of oil and gas fields development projects. A method of formal description of a production profile and a method of sensitivity analysis of economic performance factors and technological parameters to the shape of the profile are developed. The shape of the profile is described by a simple analytical function depending on three parameters characterizing production growth and decline, peak production. This analytical description provides an ability to systematically change the shape of the profile and thus an ability to calculate economic parameters such as the net present value or technological parameters for shape changed profiles. The calculated set of economic and technological parameters paves a way to simplified computations of these parameters for production profiles of more or less arbitrary shapes which were not included in the initial set of profiles. Alternatively the methods presented in the paper allow one to choose the shape of the production profile which would generate given economic performance. The methods could be used to improve quality of business planning and to reduce its cost.
