AlphaX Decision Sciences

Identifying and Containing Forecast Inflation in PDP Acquisitions

January 2026
Case Study

When an operator hedged an acquired package with uneven well performance, AlphaX Sky exposed and corrected inflated forecasts so hedges matched repeatable production.

Situation

  • An operator wanted to hedge for acquired assets adjacent to its existing operations.
  • The package included oil and gas weighted wells with heterogeneous performance histories.
  • Seller-provided economics assigned outsized value to a small subset of wells.

Challenges

  • Engineering summaries obscured well-level variance through averaging.
  • Some forecasts replaced actual history with synthetic hyperbolic reconstructions.
  • High-value wells disproportionately influenced type wells and aggregate EURs.

How AlphaX Sky Helped

  • Isolated the assets by basin to remove geographic noise and compared wells against local competitors.
  • Identified wells driving type curve inflation through percentile analysis.
  • Conducted spot checks comparing Sky EURs to third party engineering calls.
  • Applied group level conservative overrides to test downside exposure.
  • Preserved multiple scenarios without altering the base dataset.

Quantitative Outcomes

  • Top-decile wells shown to skew aggregate EURs materially.
  • Individual wells valued over $1.5MM shown to rely on unrealistic late-life rates.
  • Automatic conservative projections reduced select well EURs by 40%+.
  • Oil and gas performance diverged materially, requiring stream-specific interpretation.

Impact

  • The hedge provider gained confidence in the Sky forecasts which were reliable and driven by similar well profiles versus the broader approach of the Arps engineering.
  • Hedging volumes were sized to repeatable production, not best-case assumptions.
  • Risk was contained without rejecting the transaction outright.

Call to Action

When a handful of wells and their performance underpin risks that exceed $25MM, AlphaX Sky gives you the tools to see, and control, the risk.