Hi Stark;

There was an article from several years ago where Randy Eresman head of Cenovus and Dick Gusella were named co-oilmen of the year. In the article Randy Eresman said that Encana had been using solvent in one or two of their SAGD plants and had reduced their SOR's to below 2.0. The SAGD + solvent process was developed by scientists at ENCANA years ago and has been used successfully in their production processes. CENOVUS which was spun off from Encana now is using the process in some of their SAGD projects. I don't remember which ones and I cannot find the old article. My point is the process has been pioneered by Encana and others and Connacher got the idea from them. This isn't to say that Connacher hasn't tweaked the process for their unique McMurray formation oilsands, however, I don't think there is anything that they can patent here. 2Crude can confirm this.

Cheers; Scott