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OIL&GAS FROM LOW PERMEABILITY PLAYS. Latest granted patents 2016-2018. Hydraulic fracturing
Summary
Modern hydraulic fracturing is a technique used to facilitate the extraction of gas or oil from impermeable rock formations by means of pumping large quantities of water, chemicals, and sand into these formations at high pressures to crack the rock. Fracking was first applied in the 50s and has now become a widespread and commonly-used technique. This is mainly due to technological advances in, for example, directional drilling, high volume fracturing, micro-seismic monitoring, and the development of multi-well pads. There are several forms of fracking employed nowadays, including, for example: water-based hydraulic fracturing, using friction-reducing additives (slick water), linear fluids (such as guar-based fluids), cross-linked fluids, or viscoelastic surfactant fluids; zipper fracturing, involving simultaneous stimulation of two parallel horizontal wells; or hydrajet fracturing, combining hydrajetting with hydraulic fracturing. Surveys analysing the developments of the past ten years in fracking show that operations are moving towards the use of cleaner guar-based polymers, synthetic polymers and larger-sized crosslinker molecules. Also, the potential of nanotechnology to develop better performing fluids has received scientific attention. Nowadays, nanoparticles are used, for example, to improve leak-off of viscoelastic-surfactant-based fluids, but this field still requires further research. Opponents of hydraulic fracturing often voice concerns that it poses risks to the environment and humans. Among the most frequently mentioned issues are high water usage, methane infiltration in aquifers, aquifer contamination, extended surface footprint, induced local seismicity, etc. However, new technologies are constantly being developed to alleviate these concerns, for instance by using non-toxic chemicals, as the patents presented in this bulletin demonstrate.
A selection of patents related to hydraulic fracturing 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 5697 patents, prepared by applicants from 30 countries and registered in 23 patent offices. The patent documents mention 1228 applicants and 2675 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), CNIPA (CN), IP Australia (AU), CIPO (CA), Rospatent (RU), EPO, IMPI (MX), EAPO, INPI (BR), JPO (JP).
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 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), Baker Hughes Incorporated (US), Dow Global Technologies, LLC (US), PetroChina Company Limited (CN), Schlumberger Technology B.V. (NL), Sinopec China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (CN), Weatherford Technology Holdings LLC (US), Schlumberger Technology Corporation (US), Rohm and Haas Company (US), SWPU Southwest Petroleum University (CN).
The bulletin contains lists of the top 10 prominent patents having the highest bibliographical rating, the most extensive coverage of IPC sections, 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 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.
