Optimal Oil Production in Iran: A Dynamic Programming Model

In this article we present a dynamic programming model for oil production in Iran. To this end, we represent our model in the form of a Bellman equation in which the function for discounted profit as the objective function is formulated as a Bellman equation, and hence is viewed as a dynamic programming problem.Specifically, in order to show the liquids flow in oil tanks, we use differential equations; we also examine the liquids flow in tanks and the effects of water and gas injection in oil tanks on the average production of oil wells, and the impact of increase in production from oil tanks on future production by analyzing oil tanks simulations, and then we derive a dynamic production function model as a restriction for our problem. Therefore, we interconnect the petroleum engineering models with the economic optimizing models. The results indicate that the optimal level of oil production in Iran is much higher than the actual level of production; and it implies that oil production is not merely influenced by economic issues, but is also affected by various factors, such as political issues. Moreover, we will focus on analyzing the effects of various discounting factors and expectations in the period of technological substitutions in oil market.