A time patch dynamic attention transformer for enhanced well production forecasting in complex oilfield operations

In the field of oil production, accurately predicting well production is of great significance for optimizing production processes and enhancing economic benefits. However, oil production data generally exhibit characteristics such as high noise, complex distribution, and severe temporal fluctuations, which pose significant challenges to traditional prediction models, thereby limiting their accuracy. To address this issue, this study proposes an innovative Time Patch Dynamic Attention Transformer (TPDAT) model. This model segments the time series data into multiple time patches, extracts local features, and integrates a dynamically fused causal temporal attention mechanism to enhance the recognition of transient events and short-term fluctuations. The TPDAT model comprises the Temporal Patch Feature Extraction (TPF) module and the Dynamic Fusion Causal Temporal Attention (DFCTA) mechanism, effectively capturing multi-scale temporal features and enhancing the modeling of causal relationships during oilfield production. Experiments on the North Sea Volve oilfield dataset show that the TPDAT model significantly outperforms traditional deep learning models in well production prediction, achieves the best performance in model evaluation metrics, and demonstrates strong adaptability to complex data. The results confirm that the TPDAT model improves the accuracy and stability of well production prediction in complex oilfield environments, providing reliable support for oilfield production optimization.