US Patent Issued to SAUDI ARABIAN OIL on Oct. 7 for "Rapid side-track operations with a drop-down pipe cutter" (Saudi Arabia Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 8 -- United States Patent no. 12,435,591, issued on Oct. 7, was assigned to SAUDI ARABIAN OIL COMPANY (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia).

"Rapid side-track operations with a drop-down pipe cutter" was invented by Richard Pye (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia), Amjad Alsharaawi (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) and Ala Edeen Herzallah (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A wellbore system includes a drill string extending into a main wellbore and an untethered cutting tool disposed within the drill string. The untethered cutting tool includes at least one cutting element operable to sever the drill string such that an upper portion of the drill string may be withdrawn from the wellbore....