Patent offices award WellDog key patents for downhole spectrometer platform technology

Foundation claims are issued and allowed in the United States and Australia

WellDog announced today that the United States and Australia patent offices have issued and allowed four new patents to WellDog.  The patents cover the construction and use of WellDog’s unique downhole gas sensing technology in a variety of applications for coalbed methane, underground coal mining, shale gas and liquids, and other subsurface formations.

The patents and patent applications include issuance of “Determination of coal bed natural gas production factors and a system to determine same,” Australia patent number 2006223089; and allowance of “In-situ Detection and Analysis of Methane in Coal Bed Methane Formations with Spectrometers,” US application number 11/332,388; “Determination of Coal Bed Natural Gas Production Factors and a System to Determine Same,” US patent application number 11/855,945; and “In-situ Detection and Analysis of Methane on Coal Bed Methane Formations with Spectrometers,” US patent application number 13/545334.

“These claims cement WellDog’s position as the only provider of this class of downhole gas sensors in the world,” said Quentin Morgan, chief technology officer of WellDog.  “They underpin a number of our commercial and pre-commercial services, including GasMapper, GasSpotter, and SweetSpotter.”

The GasMapper technical service helps underground coal miners identify and mitigate gas risks and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  The GasSpotter service finds producible natural gas in coal.  The SweetSpotter service, scheduled for market introduction in the first quarter of 2014, is the only service in the world that measures coal gas content and coal permeability in one test.