SANUWAVE Health, Inc. received Canadian Pat. No. 2,909,661 from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office entitled “Apparatuses and Methods for Generating Shock Waves for Use in the Energy Industry” that has a patent life to April 2034.

The patent includes twenty claims relating to the use of shock waves, generated with laser systems, for hydraulic fracturing of rock formations, which can be employed in both secondary and tertiary oil recovery. The market size for technologies used in secondary oil recovery, also known as Improved Oil Recovery (IOR) that use mainly hydraulic fracking technology, is estimated to reach $72.6 billion in 2019. Shock wave technology can also be used as an additive technology for tertiary oil recovery, also known as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), which is estimated to have a market size of $400 billion by 2019.

This is SANUWAVE’s first patent in Canada and it is targeting one of the most important industrial activities in this country, which is oil exploitation.  This patent introduces the use of high efficiency shock waves for secondary and tertiary oil exploitation.  The claimed methods of the patent use shock waves generated via plasma bubbles created with laser emitters. Employing lasers for generating the shock waves offers a much longer useful life and lower required maintenance for the shock wave devices, which will be deployed deep inside the oil bores.  This fits the needs of low maintenance systems required by the energy industry applications.  Also, the amount of water inside the bore necessary to allow shock waves propagation is substantially reduced when compared to fracking and should not be pressurized at all, which is a significant cost reduction and results in a more environmental friendly option.  Furthermore, the low quantity and non-pressurized water that needs to be used with shock wave technology can address some of the main concerns generated by high pressure water fracking process as contamination of groundwater and possible earthquakes.

“Our new system can potentially replace the high pressure water fracking technology, which could result in significant cost reductions and the water usage decrease translates into major positive environmental impact,” commented Kevin Richardson, Chairman of the board of directors of SANUWAVE. “We are now ready to begin exploring strategic partnerships to bring this technology to the energy industry in Canada and all over the world,” concluded Mr. Richardson.

SANUWAVE Health, Inc., and its wholly owned subsidiary SANUWAVE, Inc., now have 52 patents (issued or pending) in the field of shock waves used in medical and non-medical applications.

For additional information about the company, visit www.sanuwave.com.