SPE Mid-Continent Section Luncheon - Monday, December 8, 2025

Date: Monday, December 8, 2025 — 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Special Note: This event is on Monday and not our usual Wednesday meeting day.

Location: The Vault Restaurant (620 S Cincinnati Ave, Tulsa, OK 74119)

Speaker: John M. Thompson | SAGA Wisdom | SPE Distinguished Lecturer

Topic: "Unlocking Production Potential Through Rate Transient Analysis"

Abstract: Rate Transient Analysis (RTA) is a practical, cost-effective approach for identifying wells with production uplift potential. The speaker will illustrate how RTA utilizes well production data to diagnose productivity issues originating in the wellbore and reservoir. Through interpreting historical rate and pressure trends, RTA can help engineers pinpoint factors that limit well performance. To-date, RTA is most often used by the reservoir engineer, primarily for its strength as a production forecasting tool. However, it can also highlight subjects of interest to the production engineer. Such subjects include quantifying the impact of changing choke size and pump size on productivity, as well as elucidating the likelihood for flow restrictions to be present in a wellbore, such as sand, and determine the remediation upside through a workover.

The speaker will demonstrate how RTA can be used as a production optimization tool through case studies featuring real-world field examples. These studies provide ‘what-if’ scenarios should the operator be able to restore the well to its production potential. The speaker’s objective is to illustrate how RTA provides a common language for reservoir and production engineers to holistically analyze well-reservoir "system performance". In doing so, those engineers can jointly unlock hidden reserves, accelerate cash flow, extend field life, and enhance field performance from both free-flowing and artificially lifted wells, onshore and offshore.

Speaker Bio: John is the President and Co-Founder of SAGA Wisdom, an innovative online training platform that has revolutionized the way technical knowledge is disseminated within the oil and gas industry. He holds a B.Sc. in Mining Engineering from Queen's University and a M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Calgary. Since 2009 he is better known as a reservoir engineer and instructor of Rate Transient Analysis (RTA), specializing in unconventional reservoirs. From that experience, he has analyzed production data from thousands of wells, spanning most major tight and ultra-tight plays in the U.S., Canada, and Argentina. He has authored or co-authored 19 papers on well performance analysis, primarily focused on production forecasting, stimulation effectiveness evaluation, well spacing & completions optimization and diagnosing untapped oil and gas production potential. From 2017 to 2019 he was Chair of the SPE Reservoir Evaluation and Production Optimization Special Interest Group in Calgary, AB and in 2019 he received the SPE Canadian Regional Service Award for his contributions to the society.

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