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OIL&GAS FROM LOW PERMEABILITY PLAYS. Latest granted patents 2016-2018. Fracturing: waste utilization
Summary
Hydraulic fracturing of hydrocarbon reservoirs has become an integral part of oil and gas production from low permeability reservoirs. The implementation of this technology requires a large amount of water, as well as specific substances, for example, proppants, fluids containing surfactants, as well as special drilling and flushing solutions. Fluids used for fracking represent the most vulnerable part of the technology from the point of view of environmental safety as they often contain toxic chemicals and pollute groundwater. An equally important task for this technology is to provide fresh water, which is not always feasible in the field. In this regard, the recovery and recycling of hydrofracking technology waste is an important element of the hydrocarbon production process chain, which is given great attention in research and engineering organizations. The proposed review contains statistical information on this subject, based on recent patents, as well as an extensive list of patents in various configurations.
A selection of patents related to recovery and recycling of hydrocracking technology waste 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 202 patents, prepared by applicants from 7 countries and registered in 14 patent offices. The patent documents mention 93 applicants and 294 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 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 Ecolab (USA), Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. (USA), Baker Hughes Incorporated (USA), PetroChina Company Limited (China), Foret Plasma Labs, LLC (USA), SiGNa Chemistry, Inc. (USA), Aquasource Technologies Corporation (USA), CNPC CCDC Chuanqing Drilling Engineering Company Limited (China), Sinopec China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (China), Aqua Dynamics Process Technology Limited (the United Kingdom). 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 the directional drilling and fracking technologies.
