Your Feedback

OIL&GAS FROM LOW PERMEABILITY PLAYS. Latest published applications 2017-2019. Hydraulic fracturing

Information:
OIL&GAS FROM LOW PERMEABILITY PLAYS. Latest published applications 2017-2019. Hydraulic fracturing
Energy Sector:
Oil&Gas from Low Permeability Plays
Date:
December 2020
Publisher:
EnerTechUp GmbH
Document Type:
PDF
Size:
1.9 Mb
Number of pages:
107
Research Type:
Patent Bulletin
Research code:
040517190102

Summary

Hydraulic fracturing is a process where fluid is pumped into a wellbore at an injection rate too high for the formation to accept without breaking. During injection, the resistance to the flow in the formation increases, which, in turn, increases the pressure in the formation to a value called the break-down pressure. Once the formation breaks down, a fracture is formed, and the injected fluid flows through it. Under ideal conditions a single vertical fracture is created that propagates with two wings which are 180° apart and identical in shape and size. In naturally-fractured or cleated formations, it is possible that multiple fractures are created, or the two wings evolve with branches and offsets. Then, a volume of reservoir rock around the main fracture channel is pressurized, which increases shear movement on natural fractures and provides an additional stimulation effect. There are several commonly-employed fracking methods, using, for example: water-based fluids, such as linear fluids, cross-linked fluids, viscoelastic surfactant gel fluids; foam-based fluids for environments where water is scarce, such as CO2 foam; oil-based fluids, whose advantage is that they are compatible with almost every formation type; acid-based fluids, which require the rock to be partially soluble in acid. The greatest advantage of fracking is that enables access to more oil and gas reserves, as well as enhanced production. However, there are several drawbacks associated with this, including possible water contamination and earthquakes, environmental degradation, high water consumption during fracking operations, and CO2 emissions. To avoid these issues scientists are making a great effort to develop new and refine old fracking techniques, as the applications presented in this bulletin demonstrate.
The proposed bulletin is dedicated to hydraulic fracturing techniques and includes patent applications published in 2017-2019. Research methodology is available on the Advanced Energy Technologies website. The patent bulletin includes 9712 patent documents. The applications were registered in 38 patent offices around the world. 1361 applicants from 31 countries participated in the development of the inventions. 3285 subgroups of the International Patent Classification were encountered in the patent documents.

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 registered the largest number of patent applications were CNIPA (CN), USPTO (US) and WIPO.
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.
Data is provided for each of the top 10 applicants, leading in terms of the number of published patent documents among the ones examined in the bulletin, illustrating their share in the established intellectual property market, distribution of applications by problems, IPC sections, patent offices and technology indicators. Representatives of the United States and China prevail among the patenting leaders in the examined period of time, including: Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. (US), Baker Hughes Incorporated (US), Saudi Arabian Oil Company (SA), PetroChina Company Limited (CN), China Petroleum & Chemical Company (CN), SWPU Southwest Petroleum University (CN), Ecolab (US), Schlumberger Technology Corporation (US), Schlumberger Technology B.V. (NL), Dow Global Technologies, LLC (US).
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 of a 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 hydraulic fracturing technologies.