Baker Hughes, a Ge Compnay, LLC

Baker Hughes Oilfield Operations LLC

Anthony D Bravo

Brandon M Vittur

Jian Zou

David J Jurek

Ross Poland

Brandon Vittur

A drag reducing agent has a core comprising a polyolefin; and a temporary container encapsulating the core. The temporary container contains a container material, which includes an ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer, an ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer, a polyvinylpyrrolidone, an ethylene vinylpyrrolidone copolymer, a vinylpyrrolidone vinyl acetate copolymer, a polyvinyl acetate, a polyvinyl alcohol, a polyethylene oxide, a polyethylene glycol, polyvinylidene chloride, a polysaccharide or its derivative, or a combination comprising at least one of the foregoing. A largest dimension of the drag reducing agent is greater than about 1,000 microns.

Drag reducing agents

A process of manufacturing a free-flowing solid encapsulated drag reducing additive comprises: forming a solid drag reducing additive from one or more Colefin monomers; dispersing the solid drag reducing additive in a liquid medium to form a dispersion, the liquid medium comprising an encapsulant and a non-solvent; grinding the solid drag reducing additive in the liquid medium under non-cryogenic grinding conditions to form an encapsulated drag reducing additive in a particulate form; and removing the non-solvent by a drying technique including spray drying, flash drying, or rotating disc drying to form the free-flowing solid encapsulated drag reducing additive.

Free-flowing solid encapsulated drag reducing additives

A process of manufacturing a polyolefin drag reducing agent comprises: injecting a catalyst and a drag reducing agent forming component comprising (i) at least one olefin monomer, or (ii) at least one olefin oligomer, or a combination of (i) and (ii) into a temporary container comprising a container material, sealing the temporary container; allowing the drag reducing agent forming component to polymerize in the sealed temporary container to form the polyolefin drag reducing agent; and at least partially dissolving the container material. The container material includes an ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer, an ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer, a polyvinylpyrrolidone, an ethylene vinylpyrrolidone copolymer, a vinylpyrrolidone vinyl acetate copolymer, a polyvinyl acetate, a polyvinyl alcohol, a polyethylene glycol, a polysaccharide or its derivative, or a combination comprising at least one of the foregoing, provided that when the container material comprises polyvinyl acetate or polyvinyl alcohol, the temporary container is coated or has two or more layers.

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Bixby, OK, United States of America

Anthony D Bravo