ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 8 -- United States Patent no. 12,729,591, issued on Sept. 8, was assigned to TETRA Technologies Inc. (Spring, Texas).

"Method and apparatus for automatic drill out" was invented by Virgilio Garcia Soule (Cypress, Texas), James Matthew Watson (Palestine, Texas), Brandon Scott Mitchell (Cranberry Township, Pa.) and Travis Martin Bahrt (Cochranton, Pa.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An improved debris catcher and choke system for receiving a pressurized fluid stream from wellbore operations where a controller can selectively place a plurality of debris catchers in debris catching or flushing modes, and the cleaned fluids from one of the debris catchers can be used to flush...