CALGARY, Alberta – April 11, 2018 – Acceleware Ltd. (TSX-V: AXE) (“Acceleware”) today announced that the US Patent and Trademark Office has granted Patent No. 9,938,809 (“Patent”) relating to radio frequency (“RF”) heating of heavy oil and oil sands reservoirs. The Patent is a key part of Acceleware’s growing base of intellectual property and covers the core elements of its Modular RF technology, as well as claims relating to its RF XL technology. Modular RF is targeted for commercial availability in 2022, while RF XL is expected to be available in 2020.
The Patent is one of a series of six patent applications filed by Acceleware pertaining to Modular RF and RF XL, both of which have been created to address technology barriers that have prevented the commercial success of RF heating for heavy oil and oil sands. The Modular RF system will be suited to vertical deployments at any depth from near surface to more than 1000m deep, while RF XL is targeted for horizontal deployment at depths from near-surface to approximately 1000m. RF XL will be paired with horizontal or vertical producer wells, enabling broad applicability to a wide range of reservoir types. Both Modular RF and RF XL will scale to very long production systems of 1000m and more.
Acceleware has specifically designed their solutions to provide unparalleled efficiency in delivering heat to an oil bearing formation, while ensuring that they are able to withstand unique and challenging deployment and operating conditions inherent to heavy oil and oil sands production. Acceleware believes these patented technologies will usher in a new era of flexible and high-efficiency RF heating. The company is currently preparing additional patent applications for filing in 2018.
The Patent consists of 29 claims related to the distributed operation of the Modular RF technology where multiple RF generators are integrated into a pipe string downhole. The modular nature of the technology will allow operators to create a heating system of any length from 10m to over 1000m long by connecting multiple 10m sections together. This system will be able to provide spatial and temporal control over the heating pattern in the reservoir, allowing operators to avoid hot spots and optimize production effectively from the surface. The technology will scale easily in length and power at low cost and will offer very low losses in delivering power to the formation, making it suitable for deployments at depths of 1000m or greater. The elements of the Patent which are relevant to RF XL include scalability and the ability to operate without chokes, which will increase efficiency.
Acceleware continues to further develop both the Modular RF and RF XL technology platforms and extend the base of intellectual property surrounding each. Research and development work continues to focus on increasing efficiency and reach, allowing for oil production from a wider range of resources.
The patented Modular RF and RF XL heating technologies have the potential to save significant oil production costs by reducing both capital and operating costs. Both platforms will offer immediate and significant improvements in water and land use, will completely eliminate tailings ponds, and will not require the use of solvents. As an electrically driven process, Acceleware believes that RF heating will eventually provide a clear pathway to zero GHG emissions production of heavy oil and oil sands.
About Acceleware
Acceleware (www.acceleware.com) develops high performance seismic imaging and modeling software products and provides innovative technology for radio frequency (RF) heating, an emerging thermal enhanced oil recovery method. As experts in programming for multi-core CPUs and massively parallel GPUs, Acceleware’s professional services team specializes in accelerating computationally intense applications for clients to speed up product design, analyze data and help make better business decisions. Acceleware’s products and services are used by some of the world’s largest energy and engineering companies.
Acceleware is a public company on Canada’s TSX Venture Exchange under the trading symbol “AXE”.
Disclaimers
This press release contains “forward-looking information” within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information generally means information about an issuer’s business, capital, or operations that is prospective in nature, and includes disclosure about the issuer’s prospective financial performance or financial position.
The forward-looking information in this press release can be identified by terms such as “believes” “expects”, “potential”, “targets” and “will”, and includes information about the expectations for future intellectual property development and the commercial availability of Acceleware’s RF heating technologies, as well as the anticipated benefits of those technologies. Acceleware assumes that the current research and development effort will result in future patent filings, and future commercial readiness of the resulting technologies.
Actual results may vary from the forward-looking information in this press release due to certain material risk factors. These risk factors are described in detail in Acceleware’s continuous disclosure documents, which are filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.
Acceleware assumes no obligation to update or revise the forward-looking information in this press release, unless it is required to do so under Canadian securities legislation.
This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described in this release in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “U.S. Securities Act”), or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
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For further information:
Geoff Clark Tel: +1 (403) 249-9099 geoff.clark@acceleware.com
Acceleware Ltd. 435 10th Avenue SE Calgary, AB, T2G 0W3 Canada Tel: +1 (403) 249-9099 www.acceleware.com