Archive
DIRECTIONAL DRILLING &FRACKING. Latest granted patents 2016-2018. Exploration and site development
Summary
Directional drilling is often employed in combination with hydraulic fracturing to produce oil or gas from formerly unproductive rock formations. This technique helps reach targets that cannot be drilled vertically, reduce the impact of gas or oil field development while increasing the reach of the payzone as well as producing resources from underground where excavation is not feasible. Directional drilling can also improve the productivity of wells in a fractured reservoir. However, experience has shown that site development is fraught with many problems pertaining to the makeup of the deposit and the application of horizontal well fracturing technologies, especially when it is carried out in complicated tectonic areas with deformed or overly-matured geological structures. Thus, exploitation using this technique requires proper identification and selection of geological sites. Physical preparation works usually include the removal of vegetation and preparing the surface to support movement of heavy equipment and vehicles. A well pad is then constructed on the levelled site as well as erosion and sediment control structures erected. One of the important aspects most frequently discussed in patents is the low efficiency of the exploration process in general. Also, drilling and hydraulic fracturing involves a high risk of environmental pollution at all stages of the production process. The patents presented in this bulletin try to find a solution to some of the aforementioned issues.
A selection of patents related to exploration and site development in directional drilling and fracking operations 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 on the Advanced Energy Technologies website. The present bulletin includes 652 patents, prepared by applicants from 17 countries and registered in 18 patent offices. The patent documents mention 158 applicants and 378 IPC subgroups.
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), IP Australia (AU), CNIPA (CN), CIPO (CA), Rospatent (RU), EPO, IMPI (MX), IPO (GB), NIPO (NO), INPI (BR).
From the analysis of texts of patents presented in this bulletin, detailed information is extracted for each of the unified indicators, which include: technical problems, types of inventive solutions employed, belonging of a patent document to one or other technological segment. The results of the statistical processing of this data for the entire array of the patent patents examined are summarized in the correspondingly-named diagrams and tables. In addition to that, a list of the top 10 groups of patent documents with identical unified indicators is provided, where the groups are sorted by the number of patent documents and include ID numbers and applicant names of the documents.
The following information can be found for the top 10 applicants: breakdown of patents by problems, IPC sections, patent offices, technological indicators, 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), Landmark Graphics Corporation (US), Schlumberger Technology Corporation (US), Schlumberger Technology B.V. (NL), JFE Steel Corporation (JP), Saudi Arabian Oil Company (SA), PetroChina Company Limited (CN), Baker Hughes Incorporated (US), ES Xplore, L.L.C. (US), ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company (US).
The top prominent documents section includes three lists of the top 10 patents having the highest bibliographical rating, the largest number 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 unconventional oil and gas production technologies.
