ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,276,186, issued on April 15, was assigned to ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering Co. (Spring, Texas).
"Controlling hydraulic fracture growth using stress shadows" was invented by Ward E. Narhi (Kingwood, Texas), Holger A. Meier (Montgomery, Texas), Yueming Liang (Sugar Land, Texas) and Kendal K. Decker (Spring, Texas).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method for controlling the growth of a hydraulic fracture using a stress shadow generated during a hydraulic fracturing operation includes selecting a stage pair including a first stage and a second stage for which hydraulic fractures are to be generated via a hydraulic fracturing operation....