Patents Assigned to ConocoPhillips Company
  • Oil recovery with fishbone wells and steam
    Patent number: 10385666
    Abstract: The present disclosure relates to a particularly effective well configuration that can be used for steam-drive based oil recovery methods. Fishbone multilateral wells are combined with steam drive, effectively allowing drive processes to be used where previously the reservoir lacked sufficient injectivity to allow steam drive or cyclic steam based methods.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 13, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 20, 2019
    Assignee: ConocoPhillips Company
    Inventors: John A. Stanecki, Thomas J. Wheeler
  • Sludge management system for crude oil storage tanks
    Patent number: 10384242
    Abstract: A crude oil storage tank includes a bottom wall, a peripheral wall and a top wall that collectively define a storage volume. A first nozzle is arranged at the peripheral wall. The first nozzle is configured to selectively rotate between a first position and a second position to direct a first stream of fluid into the storage volume. A second nozzle is arranged at the peripheral wall. The second nozzle is configured to selectively rotate between a first position and a second position to direct a second stream of fluid into the storage volume.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 10, 2016
    Date of Patent: August 20, 2019
    Assignee: ConocoPhillips Company
    Inventors: Sandipan Kumar Das, Sally Ann Thomas
  • Target-oriented process for estimating fracture attributes from seismic data
    Patent number: 10386514
    Abstract: Method for characterizing a subterranean formation includes: obtaining azimuth-dependent observed travel-times from measured seismic data; inverting observed travel-times to calculate a fracture attribute selected from the group consisting of: magnitude and orientation; identifying presence of fracture based on calculated fracture magnitude; identifying fracture direction based on calculated fracture orientation; calculating predicted travel-times; calculating differences or residual errors between observed travel-times and predicted travel-times; identifying potential fault locations based on residual errors; inverting fracture magnitude and orientation using travel-time differences between a shallower horizon to a deeper horizon of interest to minimize overburden artifacts.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 24, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 20, 2019
    Assignee: CONOCOPHILLIPS COMPANY
    Inventor: Stephen K. Chiu
  • System and method for sealing multilateral junctions
    Patent number: 10385654
    Abstract: A system and method for sealing a multilateral junction in an oil well is described. Molten material, such as a eutectic or non-eutectic alloy, flows into the junction area and forms a durable seal upon cooling. An expanding alloy may be utilized, which expands upon solidification and which has a melting temperature that is higher than the maximum anticipated well temperature. The alloy is placed within a cavity in the well and held at a temperature above the melting point of the alloy, after which the alloy is cooled down to the ambient well temperature and solidifies and expands within the cavity.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2018
    Date of Patent: August 20, 2019
    Assignee: ConocoPhillips Company
    Inventor: John Gibb
  • Time-lapse 4D scattering for imaging hydraulically induced fractures
    Patent number: 10386516
    Abstract: Tools and methods for monitoring a subterranean formation is provided. Methods for monitoring include: creating a time-lapse azimuth stack between an azimuth stack on a first seismic survey and an azimuth stack on a second seismic survey; identifying a lowest root mean square energy and a highest root mean square energy for each time-lapse azimuth stack; and recording an azimuth with largest overall root mean square energy.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 14, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 20, 2019
    Assignee: CONOCOPHILLIPS COMPANY
    Inventors: Mark Elliott Willis, Baishali Roy, Michael Paul Davidson, Ali Can Tura
  • Method for analysing pore pressure in shale formations
    Patent number: 10385678
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method for estimating pore pressure in subterranean shale formations such as gas- or organic-rich shale where pore pressure predictions based on either a resistivity log or a porosity-indicative log such as sonic tend to be inaccurate. The method involves combining the resistivity log with the porosity-indicative log using a Eaton formula to give an estimate of pore pressure which is accurate both for conventional water wet shale and for organic-rich shale.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 21, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 20, 2019
    Assignee: CONOCOPHILLIPS COMPANY
    Inventor: Ha Dinh Nguyen
  • FCD modeling
    Patent number: 10378317
    Abstract: The present disclosure relates to passive flow control devices or FCDs and modeling methods applicable to same. In particular, a new method to extrapolate the value of a reference FRR tool to other tools with the same architecture, but different ratings. Instead of scaling the output of the model, the data of the available characterizations is used to extrapolate what the characterization results would be to the different FRR. This estimated data set is then used to fit a new model for the uncharacterized FRR tool.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2016
    Date of Patent: August 13, 2019
    Assignee: CONOCOPHILLIPS COMPANY
    Inventor: Guy Vachon
  • Deterministic phase correction and application
    Patent number: 10379235
    Abstract: A method of more accurate phase encoding of phase offset vibrators used in simultaneous-multiple-sourcing 3D seismic mapping. The method measures the actual input energy and the proxy energy thereby determining a bulk error and a frequency-dependent error, both to be applied to correct the proxy energy. The corrected proxy energy is then used to perform actual seismic survey, and the inversion is then performed using the corrected proxy energy to source separate each vibe where the error is minimized.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 28, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 13, 2019
    Assignee: CONOCOPHILLIPS COMPANY
    Inventors: Peter M. Eick, Joel D. Brewer, Shan Shan
  • WAVSEIS sourcing
    Patent number: 10379236
    Abstract: Improved methods of providing acoustic source signals for seismic surveying, wherein a plurality of signals can be easily separated from one another after data acquisition, wherein the source signals are not sweep based.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 20, 2016
    Date of Patent: August 13, 2019
    Assignee: CONOCOPHILLIPS COMPANY
    Inventors: Peter M. Eick, Joel D. Brewer
  • Liquid drains in core-in-shell heat exchanger
    Patent number: 10378837
    Abstract: A core-in-shell heat exchanger, a method of fabricating the core-in-shell heat exchanger, and a method of exchanging heat in a core-in-shell heat exchanger disposed on a slosh-inducing moving platform are described. The method of exchanging heat includes introducing a shell-side fluid into a shell of the core-in-shell heat exchanger and introducing a fluid to be cooled into each of one or more cores of the core-in-shell heat exchanger, the one or more cores being arranged along an axial length of the shell with a plurality of baffles disposed on either side of the one or more cores along the axial length of the shell to reduce slosh of the shell-side fluid. The method also includes draining excess shell-side fluid using a plurality of drains, at least two of the plurality of drains being disposed on opposite sides of one of the plurality of baffles.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 1, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 13, 2019
    Assignee: CONOCOPHILLIPS COMPANY
    Inventors: Paul R. Davies, Amal C. Phadke
  • Thermal conditioning of fishbone well configurations
    Patent number: 10370949
    Abstract: The present disclosure relates to a particularly effective well configuration that can be used for SAGD and other steam based oil recovery methods. Fishbone multilateral wells are combined with SAGD, effectively expanding steam coverage, but the fishbones are preheated to mitigate plugging problems, with e.g., resistive heating, EM heating or chemical heating.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 2016
    Date of Patent: August 6, 2019
    Assignee: CONOCOPHILLIPS COMPANY
    Inventors: Sergei A. Filatyev, Pradeep Ananth Govind, Thomas J. Wheeler
  • Measuring downhole temperature by combining DAS/DTS data
    Patent number: 10370957
    Abstract: This disclosure describes a method of combining DAS and DTS data to accurately estimate borehole temperature. The described method takes advantage of the thermal sensitivity of DAS signal in the low-frequency band, and combines with the absolute temperature measurement from DTS, to produce a distributed temperature estimation that is up to 10000 more accurate than the current commercial solution. The DAS and DTS data should be record simultaneously at the same well. The DAS data are first low-pass filtered and then converted into temperature variation measurement. Then an accurate temperature estimation is obtained by fitting both DTS and DAS data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2017
    Date of Patent: August 6, 2019
    Assignee: CONOCOPHILLIPS COMPANY
    Inventors: Ge Jin, Herbert W. Swan, Baishali Roy, Kyle R. Krueger
  • Interactive salt model modification
    Patent number: 10359524
    Abstract: A method for making changes to a salt model are described. In particular, an algorithm allows a user to interactively edit a salt model to reflect migrated seismic data to improve model accuracy without having to select horizons that overlap or are sealed or decrease the resolution of the horizons. Instead, sealed horizon pairs are automatically generated from the edited data using a new algorithm.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 21, 2016
    Date of Patent: July 23, 2019
    Assignee: CONOCOPHILLIPS COMPANY
    Inventor: John Linn Pixton
  • Blowdown method for thermal recovery processes
    Patent number: 10352143
    Abstract: A method of blowdown for a steam chamber of a thermal recovery process is provided. A blowdown mixture is introduced into the steam chamber. The blowdown mixture can include glycol and water. Heat can be adsorbed from the steam chamber onto the blowdown mixture. A viscosifying agent can also be introduced into the steam chamber. Oil from the steam chamber can be emulsified with the viscosifying agent to produce oil or emulsions of oil. The blowdown mixture and the oil or emulstions of oil can both be recovered from the steam chamber.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2018
    Date of Patent: July 16, 2019
    Assignee: ConocoPhillips Company
    Inventor: Gamage Siluni
  • Big drilling data analytics engine
    Patent number: 10345771
    Abstract: The invention relates to systems, processes and apparatuses for determining a rig-state of a drilling rig during a wellbore drilling operation and detecting and mitigating drilling dysfunctions. These systems, processes and apparatuses provide a computer with a memory and a processor, a plurality of sensors associated with a wellbore drilling operation for acquiring time series data wherein the data are formatted for sample and bandwidth regularization and time-corrected to provide substantially time-synchronized data, a processing graph of data-stream networked mathematical operators that applies continuous analytics to the data at least as rapidly as the data are acquired to determine dynamic conditions of a plurality of rig conditions associated with the wellbore drilling operation and determining a rig-state from the plurality of rig conditions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 12, 2016
    Date of Patent: July 9, 2019
    Assignee: CONOCOPHILLIPS COMPANY
    Inventors: Phil D. Anno, Son Pham, Stacey C. Ramsay
  • Surface wave tomography using sparse data acquisition
    Patent number: 10338242
    Abstract: Method and system for ongoing monitoring for underground structure at or near a production wellpad is provided. The system includes a sparse acquisition grid and utilizes information obtained from Rayleigh waves to monitor subsurface structures.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 18, 2016
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2019
    Assignee: ConocoPhillips Company
    Inventors: Roman Kazinnik, Michael Davidson, Ali Tura, Aaron L. Janssen, Charles C. Mosher, Ronnie B. Darnell
  • Delayed gelling agents
    Patent number: 10323174
    Abstract: The invention is directed to delayed gelation agents comprising a degradable polymeric cage containing therein one or more gelation agents. The cage degrades in situ, e.g., in an oil reservoir, thus releasing the gelation agent(s), which can then crosslink second polymers in situ to form a gel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 6, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 18, 2019
    Assignees: ConocoPhillips Company, University of Kansas
    Inventors: Huili S. Guan, Faye L. Scully, Cory Berkland, Ahmad Moradi-Araghi, Jenn-Tai Liang, David R. Zornes, Riley B. Needham, James H. Hedges, Min Cheng, James P. Johnson
  • Two-material P and A plug
    Patent number: 10316612
    Abstract: A plug for Plug and Abandonment (P&A) operations and methods of installation and use. The plug is a two-part plug of bismuth-based alloy and resin, allowing for sealing of an oil well using two different mechanisms with a shorter plug.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 9, 2018
    Date of Patent: June 11, 2019
    Assignee: ConocoPhillips Company
    Inventor: Randall S. Shafer
  • DAS method of estimating fluid distribution
    Patent number: 10316649
    Abstract: This disclosure describes a method of calculating fluid distribution from a hydraulically fractured well, especially during a plug-and-perf hydraulic fracturing operation. The Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) data is used to quantify the fluid distribution in separate perf clusters during fracturing, and the result can be used for completion design and optimization, hydraulic fracturing, and ultimately for oil and gas production.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2017
    Date of Patent: June 11, 2019
    Assignee: ConocoPhillips Company
    Inventors: Kyle Friehauf, Mark R. Gibson
  • Oil recovery with fishbone wells and steam
    Patent number: 10316632
    Abstract: The present disclosure relates to a particularly effective well configuration that can be used for steam-drive based oil recovery methods. Fishbone multilateral wells are combined with steam drive, effectively allowing drive processes to be used where previously the reservoir lacked sufficient injectivity to allow steam drive or cyclic steam based methods.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 13, 2015
    Date of Patent: June 11, 2019
    Assignee: ConocoPhillips Company
    Inventors: John A. Stanecki, Thomas J. Wheeler