TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – TSX-V-listed technology firm Titanium Corp has assigned a 50% interest and signed a co-ownership agreement with oil sands miner Syncrude Canada in a patent that could help Syncrude reduce its environmental footprint.

Under the terms of the agreement announced on Thursday, Titanium had assigned a 50% interest in Canadian patent number 2 662.346 – Recovery of Bitumen from Froth Treatment Tailings – to Syncrude, giving the miner and its joint venture partners the exclusive right to practise the patent at Syncrude's oil sands project sites. Titanium would hold the right to practise the patent at all other oil sands sites.

As co-owners, Titanium and Syncrude would not be paying fees to each other for use of the patent.

"Titanium and Syncrude have been discussing for some time now the possibility of overlapping technology interests. Through constructive dialogue, the parties have reached agreements that provide clarity on these interests and a framework for implementation of our technologies, with Syncrude focused on bitumen recovery and our company on minerals recovery,” Titanium president and CEO Scott Nelson commented.

Under a right of first proposal agreement, Titanium would have the “first right" to propose and negotiate arrangements to recover heavy minerals when Syncrude proceeded with the commercial recovery of bitumen and minerals using the assigned patent. The agreement provided timeframes for notice, proposal and negotiation periods.

Titanium was working with Syncrude and the other oil sands industry operators toward commercial deployment of its Creating Value from Waste (CVW) suite of technologies. The technology reduced the environmental impact of oil sands tailings, while economically recovering valuable products that would otherwise be lost.

CVW recovered bitumen, solvents and minerals from tailings, preventing these commodities from entering tailings ponds and the atmosphere. The technology helped to reduce volatile organic compounds and greenhouse-gas emissions, improved hot tailings water quality for recycling and thickened residual tailings more readily. Titanium advised that it aimed to create a new minerals industry, starting with the production and export of zircon, an essential ingredient in ceramics.