Curtailment

If your production network is constrained (the deliverability of your wells exceeds the capacity of the infrastructure), then the wells will be curtailed according to the methodology of the Calculation Solver Type selected for that project (this can be set in Project settings).

On a month by month (or day by day when using Daily Production Forecasting), the program determines which wells are best produced to maximize the hydrocarbon production through the network. The default solver is the “Full Optimization” solver that uses a nonlinear optimizer to solve the entire network and all constraints as a single optimization problem to best choose which wells to produce to meet all active constraints. Other solvers like the “Well Priority Production” solver are less complex but offer more direct control to the user for selecting which wells to produce. See Solver Types for more details on each solver.

It is important to note, that although in a given month Enersight curtails the production of individual wells, a well’s productivity on a Rate versus Cumulative Production basis is maintained. This means that even with the constrained production, Enersight will eventually produce the well to its full reserves, provided the well does not hit an economic limit.

The example below shows a well that has been curtailed. The solid line shows the potential production, while the dashed line shows the actual production. This actual production could be different due to any of curtailment, downtime or risk.

Click image to expand or minimize.