ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,252,649, issued on March 18, was assigned to Saudi Arabian Oil Co. (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia).
"Pillar fracturing" was invented by Ataur Malik (Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia), Mohammed A. Asiri (Udhailiyah, Saudi Arabia), Saad Al-Driweesh (Udhailiyah, Saudi Arabia), Rajesh Kumar Saini (Cypress, Texas), Mohammad Hamidul Haque (Katy, Texas) and Mohammed Sayed (Katy, Texas).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A system and method for hydraulic fracturing a subterranean formation with fracturing fluid to generate fractures, and intermittently adjusting a characteristic of the fracturing fluid conveying proppant to form pillars of proppant in the fractures."
...