With the decreasing average size of new discoveries in mature production areas, the uncertainties in the base of oil field investment decisions are continually increasing. Fewer appraisal wells, which allow to decrease the amount of subsurface uncertainty, are typically drilled before the development of a small field compared to large fields. In this context, novel solutions must be established to commercialize small discoveries under technical and market uncertainties. In such conditions, managerial flexibilities, which enable to change the course of the project in the event of new information acquisition, must be critically considered in the investment valuation process.

Combining the real options approach and decision analysis, we establish a novel model to identify the additional value created by a sequential drilling strategy for field development under oil price and resource uncertainty. In particular, we capture the sequence of the key investment and operating decisions pertaining to a marginal field development in cooperation with an oil industry partner, which corresponds to a synthetic yet realistic project case. By considering the flexibility in dividing the production well drilling into two stages, we adopt the least-squares Monte Carlo algorithm to evaluate the option to wait to expand the production by drilling additional wells.

Furthermore, we identify the conditions in which the staged (phased) development is preferable against standard development. We propose a decision rule to determine the optimal expansion timing based on the acquisition of new information on the reservoir and oil price uncertainty. Our results suggest that staged development carries large upside potential for the marginal field development under extensive reservoir uncertainty. In addition, partial hedging against the downside risks in the staged development can enhance the project’s economy in a sufficiently significant manner to justify investment.

随着成熟生产区新发现的平均规模不断减小，油田投资决策基础的不确定性也在不断增加。与大油田相比，通常在小油田开发之前就钻了较少的评估井，从而减少了地下不确定性。在这种情况下，必须建立新颖的解决方案，以在技术和市场不确定性的条件下将小发现商业化。在这种情况下，必须在投资评估过程中认真考虑能够在获得新信息时改变项目进程的管理灵活性。

结合实物期权方法和决策分析，我们建立了一个新颖的模型，以识别在油价和资源不确定性的情况下，用于油田开发的顺序钻井策略所创造的附加价值。特别是，我们与石油行业合作伙伴合作，掌握了与边际油田开发相关的关键投资和运营决策的顺序，这与综合但现实的项目案例相对应。考虑到将生产井分为两个阶段的灵活性，我们采用最小二乘蒙特卡洛算法来评估选择等待通过扩展其他井来扩大生产的选项。

此外，我们确定了分阶段（分阶段）开发优于标准开发的条件。我们提出了一个决策规则，根据对储层和石油价格不确定性的新信息的获取来确定最佳扩张时机。我们的结果表明，在广泛的储层不确定性条件下，分阶段开发对边际油田开发具有很大的上升潜力。此外，对分阶段开发中的下行风险进行部分套期保值可以以足够重要的方式增强项目的经济性，以证明投资的合理性。