Archive
UNCONVENTIONAL OIL. Latest published applications. 2017-2019. Waste processing
Summary
Unconventional oil includes, for example, tight oil, oil sands, oil shale, or heavy oil. Therefore, operators usually have to use more technically-challenging as well as expensive methods for production, comprising, for example, directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing. In some cases (e.g. oil sands) also open-pit mining techniques can be employed. Recovery of unconventional oil resources produces large amounts of waste whose disposal is strictly regulated by the governments of the country where the production site is situated. Depending on the production stage, production wastes may include, for example: drilling fluids, cuttings, produced water, as well as flowbacks. Flowbacks, in particular, form one of the major concerns of hydraulic fracturing and directional drilling because they often contain toxic substances and higher concentrations of TDS (total dissolved solids), which can pose a risk to human health and the environment. Flowbacks require large areas for on-site storage (pits, tanks, ponds). As pits or tanks are not a suitable waste management solution in the long run, operators often treat and reuse flowback for new wells. Production sludges, meanwhile, are often attended to using alternative thickening, stabilization, and dewatering prior to final disposal. A fairly new approach in waste management is its injection into suitable deep geological formations, as it can decrease potentially harmful impacts on groundwater, reduce the area required for waste disposal and also mitigate air and environmental pollution. The applications presented in this bulletin give an overview of the latest developments in this area.
The proposed bulletin is dedicated to waste management in unconventional oil and includes patent applications published in 2017-2019. Research methodology is available on the Advanced Energy Technologies website. The patent bulletin includes 367 patent documents. The applications were registered in 28 patent offices around the world. 103 applicants from 14 countries participated in the development of the inventions. 366 subgroups of the International Patent Classification were encountered in the patent documents.
Key Highlights
Statistical information presented in the bulletin includes distribution of patent documents by years, by patent offices and by applicant countries, applicant-related data (residents and non-residents), and data on the most frequently mentioned International Patent Classification divisions (sections, classes, subclasses, groups, and subgroups). The largest number of applications during the period of time under revision was registered by the patent office of the United States.
From the analysis of texts of applications 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 applications 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 applications 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: Dow Global Technologies, LLC (US), Xyleco Inc. (US), Ecolab (US), BASF, SE (DE), S.P.C.M. SA (FR), Suncor Energy (CA), Extrakt Process Solutions LLC (US), Kemira Oyj (FI), Coresource Solutions LLC (US), Cleantek Industries Inc. (CA).
The top prominent documents section includes three lists of the top 10 patent applications having the highest bibliographical rating, the largest number of IPC sections, and those not being a part of patent family.
A list 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 is provided in the conclusive part of the bulletin.
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. 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 unconventional oil and gas production technologies.
