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Modeling Dependence Among Geologic Risks In Sequential Exploration Decisions, J. Eric Bickel, James E. Smith

Eric Bickel

Prospects in a common basin are likely to share geologic features. For example, if hydrocarbons are found at one location, they may be more likely to be found at other nearby locations. When making drilling decisions, we should be able to exploit this dependence and use drilling results from one location to make more informed decisions about other nearby prospects. Moreover, we should consider these informational synergies when evaluating multi-prospect exploration opportunities. In this paper, we describe an approach for modeling the dependence among prospects and determining an optimal drilling strategy that takes this information into account. We demonstrate this …