OIL&GAS FROM LOW PERMEABILITY PLAYS.Latest published applications 2017-2019. Exploration and site development
Summary
Unconventional hydrocarbons are becoming increasingly significant in global energy structures. They require elaborate production methods as they behave differently in their accumulation mechanisms, occurrence states, and distribution models. Some of their main characteristics are, for example, ultra-low porosity and permeability, widely-distributed nano-scale pore throats, no uniform oil–gas–water interface or pressure system. In order to ensure maximum production yields, operations usually start with a thorough exploration of the deposit. Frequently performed processes in this phase include seismic reservoir characterization, geological drilling, and analysis of the resulting samples. The geological study of the reservoir evaluates features such as the lithology, physical properties, brittleness, oiliness, stress anisotropy, etc. If the presence of producible amounts of hydrocarbons has been ascertained, site development will commence, which necessitates the supply of fairly large amounts of equipment and materials as well as the provision of ample resources of water for fracking operations and measures for waste disposal. Water acquisition, in particular, is one of the most prominent issues in fracking as the process uses large amounts of this resource. Also, possible contamination of groundwater, air pollution, blowouts due to gas explosion, fracking-induced earthquakes, etc. are often named among the problems of this industry. The applications presented in this bulletin try to address some of these issues.
The proposed bulletin is dedicated to exploration and site development in unconventional oil and includes patent applications published in 2017-2019. Research methodology is available on the Advanced Energy Technologies website. The patent bulletin includes 1746 patent documents. The applications were registered in 31 patent offices around the world. 181 applicants from 17 countries participated in the development of the inventions. 629 subgroups of the International Patent Classification were encountered in the patent documents.
Key Highlights
The bulletin provides general statistical figures, including the overall distribution of patent documents by years, by patent offices and by applicant countries, applicant-related data (residents and non-residents), data on the most frequently mentioned International Patent Classification divisions (sections, classes, subclasses, groups, and subgroups). The most popular patent offices among the applicants were: USPTO (US), WIPO, CNIPA (CN), CIPO (CA), EPO, INPI (BR), IP Australia (AU), IPO (GB), NIPO (NO), IMPI (MX).
For each of the patent documents selected for the examination in the present bulletin the characteristics of unified indicators were preliminary defined, they include: technical problems, types of inventive solutions employed, belonging to one or other technological segment. This allows the internal content for each of the indicators in the aggregate array of documents to be visualized, for instance, to define the sequence and proportional correlation of technical problems the inventive solutions disclosed in the texts aim to solve. A list of the top 10 groups consisting of patent documents with identical unified indicators contains ID numbers and applicant names of respective documents; the groups are sorted by the number of patent documents.
The following information can be found for the top 10 applicants: breakdown of applications by problems, IPC sections, patent offices, as well as the estimation of their share in the established intellectual property market. The 10 leading applicants by the number of patent documents were: Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. (US), Baker Hughes Incorporated (US), Landmark Graphics Corporation (US), Schlumberger Technology Corporation (US), Saudi Arabian Oil Company (SA), Chevron USA, Inc. (US), Metrol Tech Limited (GB), Services Petroliers Schlumberger (FR), ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company (US), JFE Steel Corporation (JP).
The bulletin contains lists of the top 10 prominent patent applications having the highest bibliographical rating, the most extensive coverage of IPC sections, and those not being part a of patent family.
The conclusive part of the bulletin represents the lists of all of the documents reviewed, arranged by the top 10 groups of patent documents with identical unified indicators and by patent offices with the indication of the ID numbers of the registered patent applications.
Who needs this bulletin?
The data provided in the proposed bulletin is a timely reflection of the transformations that take place in the intellectual property sector of the industrial direction concerned. A thoroughly edited selection of patent documents can become a good complement to your library of available technical solutions. The bulletin is targeted at inventors, engineers, researchers, managers and business administrators involved in the development of unconventional oil and gas production technologies.
