Applied Energy, Vol.87, No.10, 3235-3254, 2010
Economic limit of field production in Texas
When the revenue generated from an oil and gas field is less than the cost of operations, the field is no longer considered an asset and production ceases. Capital investment may be made in an attempt to increase production or the field may be divested or abandoned. At some point in time all fields will terminate production at their economic limit. The purpose of this paper is to quantify the economic limit of field production in Texas. We classify 16,045 fields that terminated production between 1993 and 2008 by product type, location, and year of termination, and compute average production and adjusted gross revenue statistics near the end of the field's life cycle. We demonstrate that the revenue thresholds of offshore oil and gas fields is greater than the economic limits of fields located in bays-estuaries and on land and gas fields turn marginal sooner than oil fields. During the last year of production, average oil field revenue varied from $65,000 on land and bays-estuaries to $181,000 offshore: gas field revenue thresholds ranged from $384,000 (land) to $584,000 (bays-estuaries) to $637,000 (offshore). (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.