Optimal Path of Gas Extraction from South Pars Gas Field: A Dynamic Programming Approach

The amount of gas lift from the common field of South Pars highly depends on the pattern field development the by each party. This paper models the optimum production of gas from a reservoir block of the South Pars field and analyzes the effects of the economic parameters on the optimum path. Dynamic programming has been used to solve the optimization problem. To solve the problem numerically, state variables have been considered as discrete variables. According to the results, economic parameters including projected path of natural gas prices and the government discount factor play important role in determining the optimum path of gas production from the field. Therefore, for the gas field under investigation, despite being a common field between Iran and Qatar, the maximum potential production by the field is not necessarily the optimum production for the field. In this way, maximizing the return of the reservoir is not necessarily equivalent to maximizing the recovery factor of the field. Accordingly, maximizing the economic return should be considered in the development of hydrocarbon fields.