SONIC and Shell Canada 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 PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty), 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."

Tags: Shell, SONIC Technology Solutions Inc.