US Patent Issued to SAUDI ARABIAN OIL on April 14 for "Dissolvable ballast for untethered downhole tools" (Saudi Arabia, American Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,601,231, issued on April 14, was assigned to SAUDI ARABIAN OIL COMPANY (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia).

"Dissolvable ballast for untethered downhole tools" was invented by Huseyin Rahmi Seren (Houston), Max Deffenbaugh (Fulshear, Texas) and Mohamed Larbi Zeghlache (Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method involves mixing metallic particles and a liquefied polymer to form a mixture, placing the mixture within a mold, placing a magnet in the vicinity of the mixture within the mold, thereby causing the metallic particles to position themselves in a self-assembly formation within the mixture in response to a magnetic field ge...