Patent Document ID: 9002766
Application ID: 13600414
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A computer implemented method for determining a value of information, the method comprising: drawing, by the computer, a plurality of synthetic prior earth models from one or more prior distributions for a plurality of well locations and generate from each prior distribution synthetic data; drawing, by the computer, a plurality of posterior earth models from a posterior distribution for the plurality of well locations, wherein the posterior distribution is generated through stochastic inversion from the synthetic data and the plurality of posterior models are drawn from each of the plurality of prior earth models; calculating, from the plurality of prior earth models and posterior earth models, a well production at a plurality of proposed well locations using a relationship between the earth parameters and the well production for both the prior earth models and the posterior earth models; calculating a prior well cost using a relationship between the prior well cost and the earth parameters and calculating a posterior well cost using a relationship between the posterior well cost and the earth parameters; calculating a value prior using the prior cost and the prior production and calculating a value posterior using the posterior cost and the posterior production; calculating a weighted prior value and calculating a weighted posterior value using, respectively, the value prior and the value posterior; and calculating a difference or a ratio between the weighted value prior and the weighted value posterior and calculating a sum over a plurality of well locations of the difference or the ratio to obtain the value of information.