Archive
OIL&GAS FROM LOW PERMEABILITY PLAYS. Latest granted patents 2014-2016. Energy, gas or water consumption
Summary
The consumption of energy, gas, water and other resources largely determines the profitability of the production of unconventional hydrocarbons using the methods of directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing. The problem of increased water consumption during fracking is especially acute, since the purification and disposal of large volumes of wastewater used after this operation is a rather expensive operation. In addition, it should be borne in mind that a large number of shale deposits in the world are located in areas experiencing severe water shortages, primarily in the countries of North Africa, but also largely in Mexico, China and India. Protecting groundwater from contaminated process water requires reliable technological solutions. Measures for effective energy saving during multiple drilling of inclined wells and hydrofracking are also important. This patent bulletin compiles a collection of recent patents in which the purpose of inventions was to partially solve the problems noted.
The present bulletin reviews patents granted by patent offices around the globe in 2014-2016 in the field related to energy, gas, water consumption in the process of oil and gas extraction from low permeability plays. General research methodology can be found on the Advanced Energy Technologies website. 201 patent documents from 15 patent offices around the world are represented in the bulletin. In total, 118 applicants from 12 countries and 258 subgroups of the International Patent Classification are mentioned.
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 USPTO (US), CNIPA (CN) and CIPO (CA).
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 Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. (USA), Baker Hughes Incorporated (USA), Aquasource Technologies Corporation (USA), Orbital Atk, Inc. (US), CNPC CCDC Chuanqing Drilling Engineering Company Limited (CN), Schlumberger Technology Corporation (US), CNPC China National Petroleum Corporation (CN), Ecolab (US), Evolution Well Services (US), Foret Plasma Labs, LLC (US). 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 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 proposed patent statistics bulletin allows the existing trends in the intellectual property market of the specified industrial sector to be timely traced, as well as the possibility of acquiring a carefully selected list of patent documents fully corresponding to the specified subject. The bulletin can be useful for inventors, engineers, scientific workers, and business representatives, who are focused on the development of oil and gas extraction from low permeability plays.
