ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,601,237, issued on April 14, was assigned to ConocoPhillips Co. (Houston).
"Temporary suspension of completed hydrocarbon wells" was invented by Jan Ove Soerheim (Tananger, Norway), Lars Albertsen (Tananger, Norway) and Rune Woie (Tananger, Norway).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "In the process of suspending a subsea hydrocarbon well (1) after finalizing the completion operation and prior to stimulation of the well and putting the well on production, preinstalled upper and lower glass plugs (11, 12) are used as temporary barriers in the tubing. The plugs allow various tests to be performed before the lower plug (12), below the production ...