Archive
UNCONVENTIONAL OIL. Latest published applications 2017-2019. In-situ combustion
Summary
The in situ combustion method is also intended for thermal stimulation of an oil reservoir, but it is fundamentally different from steam methods. An increase in reservoir temperature is provided by partial combustion of heavy fractions in oil. The combustion front propagating along the formation heats the oil to high temperatures (up to 600-7000С) forming combustion products (carbon dioxide, hydrocarbon gases, steam) that increase the pressure in the formation, which, while reducing the viscosity of the oil, creates favorable conditions for its extraction. An important advantage of this technology is that it eliminates the need for a steam generation complex, which offers a significant advantage for remote fields. In addition, thermal cracking reactions occur as a result of active oxidative action, i.e. in-situ upgrading occurs. Despite the fact that this technology has existed for more than 50 years, and allows for a very high recovery factor of up to 60%, it is not widely used. This is primarily due to there having been only a small number of successful implementations in conjunction with operational and safety problems.
The present bulletin reviews patent applications granted by patent offices around the globe in 2017-2019 in the field related to in-situ combustion of unconventional oil. General research methodology can be found on the Advanced Energy Technologies website. 101 patent documents from 12 patent offices around the world are represented in the bulletin. In total, 41 applicants from 6 countries and 85 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 patent applications were CNIPA (CN), USPTO (US) and INPI (BR).
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 PetroChina Company Limited (China), Chevron USA, Inc. (USA), China Petroleum University (China), Xi’an Shiyou University (China), CNOOC China National Offshore Oil Corporation (China),Precision Combustion Inc. (USA), CAS CNOOC Research Institute (China), General Energy Recovery Inc (Canada), Martin Parry Technology Pty Ltd (Australia), Nexen Energy ULC (Canada). Data representing the share in the established intellectual property market, distribution of documents 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 patent applications with the highest bibliographical rating, the most extensive coverage of IPC sections, and top prominent single applications.
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.
