A New Discovery about Inflow Control Devices in Controlling Water and Increasing Oil Recovery

Inflow control devices (ICD), which prevent water breakthrough by controlling the inflow profile of a well, have been used successfully in many oilfields. This paper will introduce a new discovery and an unsuccessful example. Moreover, this paper investigates meticulously and thoroughly to find the application conditions of the new discovery. Based on permeability rush coefficient and permeability differential, a series of plans are carried out to study ICD application conditions. Finally, a new discovery is developed. There are inflow-control device applications for ICD’s, which can work well in heterogeneous reservoirs for controlling water and increasing oil production, but they cannot work well in a homogeneous formation. The effect of ICD on controlling water and increasing oil is very sensitive to the degree of reservoir heterogeneity. The cumulative oil production increases with increasing permeability rush coefficient and permeability differential.