Optimizing Production Allocation Using Well Test Data and Nodal Analysis to Maximize Total Field Production

Abstract

Production allocation is a central operational decision in mature oil and gas assets because it determines how limited drawdown, lift-gas, surface-handling, and facility capacities are distributed among producing wells. This article develops a comprehensive publication-oriented framework for optimizing production allocation using well test data and nodal analysis. The paper argues that field production can be increased when short-duration well tests, pressure-transient interpretation, production surveillance, pressure-volume-temperature data, and integrated production models are combined into a calibrated optimization loop. The proposed workflow validates well test data, converts them into well deliverability models, calibrates inflow performance relationship and vertical lift performance curves, integrates individual wells into a surface-network model, and applies constrained optimization to select rate, choke, lift-gas, and routing decisions that maximize total field production while respecting reservoir, wellbore, flowline, separator, water-handling, gas-handling, sand, corrosion, and drawdown limits. Recent literature shows that nodal analysis can identify bottlenecks across the reservoir-to-separator system, while back allocation and data-driven surveillance can reduce the uncertainty of individual well rates when only commingled field production is measured. The article contributes a practical decision framework, an optimization formulation, implementation checklist, and discussion of uncertainty management for production engineers. It concludes that the most reliable allocation strategy is not the highest instantaneous rate from every well, but the field-wide operating point that maximizes stable production under physical, economic, and integrity constraints