SONIC and Shell Canada apply for oil sands process patent
June 23, 2009 VANCOUVER -- SONIC Technology Solutions Inc. is pleased to report that the company and Shell Canada Energy have jointly filed a patent application for the recovery of bitumen from oil sands.
The patent application was filed jointly under a Collaboration Agreement between SonoOil and Shell. SonoOil is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SONIC working with Shell to develop oil sand extraction process innovations.
The application was made in Canada and filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), allowing for submissions to other national jurisdictions to be made later. The application builds on earlier work by SONIC as described in an earlier provisional patent application and incorporates further work conducted and funded by Shell.
Adam Sumel, CEO of SONIC, said, "We are very pleased that Shell's progress to date has borne out our earlier proprietary work which has now been strengthened with Shell's additional results. The details of the innovation as disclosed in the patent application will be available when the application is published by the Patent Office."
SONIC's core operations are centered on its PetroSonic heavy oil upgrading process except for specific collaborations independently funded and developed for commercial use, such as the agreement with Shell and the recent joint venture with Nalco Mobotec. The company's work on oil sands has shown potential in several aspects of existing oil sands operations as well as in the fundamental separation and recovery aspects.
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