DOI: 10.3390/pr14213478 ISSN: 2227-9717

Engineering-Constrained Explainable Machine Learning for Development Policy Optimization in the Y284 Tight Oil Block, Ordos Basin

Huanying Yang, Xiaoping An, Youwei Xu, Yunli Lu, Gang Hui, Hongchang Li, Jing Wang, Xiaohui Fan, Xueying Yu

Tight-oil performance is controlled by a coupled reservoir-engineering system: reservoir quality, fracturing design, well pattern, and operating policy jointly determine whether geological potential becomes sustained production. This study develops an engineering-constrained, explainable machine-learning workflow for the Y284 block of the Longdong Chang 6 reservoir and identifies the controls on five-year cumulative oil. Four constraints are imposed: pre-decision and post-hoc variables are separated to avoid leakage; decline fitting, water-breakthrough classification, and injection-effect diagnosis serve as physical constraints; models are selected by accuracy and engineering plausibility; and SHAP controls are turned into field-readable policies. Of 939 well records, 338 with a complete geological and engineering record form the model-ready sample; five-fold cross-validation stratified by well type gives an out-of-fold R2 of 0.55 for the retained random forest. Engineering communication intensity, set by pump rate, stage count, and per-stage fluid and proppant volume, dominates production (69.9% of the mean absolute SHAP value), followed by geological storage capacity (21.6%) and injection and production control (8.6%); stage count and pump rate rank first. The framework is a block-scale screening and ranking tool, not a high-accuracy predictor.

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