Predicting oil field performance using machine learning programming: a comparative case study from the UK continental shelf

Predicting the performance of a subsurface oil field is a large, multivariant problem. Production is controlled and influenced by a wide array of geological and engineering parameters which overlap and interact in ways that are difficult to unravel in a manner that can be predictive. Supervised machine learning is a statistical approach which uses empirical learnings from a training dataset to create models and make predictions about future outcomes. The goal of this study is to test a number of supervised machine learning methods on a dataset of oil fields from the United Kingdom continental shelf (UKCS), in order to assess whether, (a) it is possible to predict future oil field performance and (b), which methods are the most effective. The study is based on a dataset of 60 fields with 5 controlling parameters, (gross depositional environment, average permeability, net-to-gross, gas–oil ratio and total number of wells) and 2 outcome parameters (recovery factor and maximum field rate) for each. The choice of controlling parameters was based on a PCA of a larger dataset from a wider project database. Five different machine learning algorithms were tested. These include linear regression, robust linear regression, linear kernel support vector regression, cubic kernel support vector regression and boosted trees regression. Overall, 83% of the data was used as a training dataset while 17% was used to test the predictability of the algorithms. Results were compared using R-Squared, Mean Square Error, Root Mean Square Error and Mean Absolute Error. Graphs of predicted responses v. true (actual) responses are also shown to give a visual illustration of model performance. Results of this analysis show that certain methods perform better than others, depending on the outcome variable in question (recovery factor or maximum field rate). The best method for both outcome variables was the support vector regression, where, depending on the kernel function applied, a reliable level of predictability with low error rates were achieved. This demonstrates a strong potential for statistics-based prediction models of reservoir performance.