Data Mining Techniques Identify Upside Potential In Wolfcamp Shale Assets By Abhishek Gaurav HOUSTON-As part of an integrated analysis of potential asset acquisition opportunities in the Permian Basin Wolfcamp Shale play, a novel workflow was developed to accurately determine the estimated ultimate recovery rates of horizontal wells using geology, machine learning, pattern recognition and multivariate statistical analysis. The Wolfcamp formation is approximately 1,000 feet thick in the general study area and has multiple landings or benches. There were almost 250 wells in the study area. Statistically, any number greater than 30 is reasonable for deriving patterns, considering the number of well variables used in multivariate analysis is relatively smaller. The specific assets analyzed are small and confined to similar depositional environments with respect to each bench. The million-dollar question was whether they held enough upside value to justify acquiring them. 78 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER