Archive
UNCONVENTIONAL OIL. Latest granted patents 2016-2018. In-situ combustion
Summary
Unconventional oil, which includes heavy oil and oil sands, is increasingly becoming the main oil resource in many regions of the world. This is especially evident in Canada, Venezuela, Oman, the Volga regions of Russia, Brazil, and some other countries. Traditional methods are not suitable for the production of these types of oil, therefore various options for stimulating the impact on the reservoir and, first of all, thermal activation are used in the fields. In-situ combustion is one such option, which has been known for more than 50 years, but has not gained widespread acceptance, unlike, for example, steam methods. When using this method the temperature of the formation increases due to the combustion of heavy fractions in oil. Oil in the reservoir is heated to high temperatures (up to 600-7000С); the resulting gases increase the pressure in the reservoir, which, while reducing the viscosity of oil, contributes to the creation of favourable conditions for its extraction. An important advantage of this technology is that there is no need for a steam generating complex, which is very important in remote fields. The main reason for the low interest in this technology is the inconsistency of positive results, as well as problems with the safe operation of the fields. Researchers and engineers regularly publish various technical solutions in this area aimed at improving this mining method.
A selection of patents related to in-situ combustion in the process of unconventional oil extraction and published by patent offices around the globe in 2016-2018 is provided for review in the present bulletin. General research methodology can be found at Advanced Energy Technologies website. The present bulletin includes 102 patents, prepared by applicants from 9 countries and registered in 8 patent offices. The patent documents mention 45 applicants and 95 IPC subgroups.
Key Highlights
The bulletin contains statistical data on the 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 top three patent offices that granted the largest number of patents were CNIPA (China), USPTO (USA) and Rospatent (Russia).
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.
A list of the top 10 applicants by the number of patent documents includes PetroChina Company Limited (China), Kazan Federal University (Russia), Nexen Energy ULC (Canada), Beijing Puxin Petroleum Technology Development Co. Ltd (China), Statoil Petroleum AS (Norway), Suncor Energy (Canada), Zarubezhneft (Russia), Apex Engineering, Inc. (Canada), Baker Hughes Incorporated (USA), CUP China University of Petroleum, Beijing Campus (China). Data representing the share in the established intellectual property market, distribution of patent by problems, IPC sections, patent offices is provided in the form of tables and diagrams for them.
The prominent documents pages contain the top 10 patents with the highest bibliographical rating, the most extensive coverage of IPC sections, and the shortest patent pending time.
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 granted patents.
Who needs this bulletin?
The statistics bulletin under examination serves as one of the variants to monitor advanced technical achievements in the specified industrial sector. The statistical data, rating evaluations and carefully selected patent documents provided in the bulletin can be of interest for inventors, students and educators, engineers, as well as for businessmen and investors, who in one way or another are concerned with the problems of the development of unconventional oil technologies.
