Page 188 - Synthetic Fuels Handbook

174 CHAPTER SIX

11 million tonnes of shale in energy production, and plans to cut oil shale’s share of primary
energy production from 62 to 47–50 percent in 2010.
Australia mined 4 million tonnes of oil shale between 1862 and 1952, when govern-
ment support of mining ceased. More recently, from the 1970s on, oil companies have
been exploring possible reserves. Since 1995 Southern Pacific Petroleum N.L. and Central
Pacific Minerals N.L. (SPP/CPM) (at one time joined by the Canadian company Suncor)
has been studying the Stuart deposit near Gladstone, Queensland, which has a potential to
produce 2.6 billion barrels of oil. From June 2001 through to March 2003, 703,000 barrels
of oil, 62,860 barrels of light fuel oil, and 88,040 barrels of ultra-low sulfur naphtha were
produced from the Gladstone area. Once heavily processed, the oil produced will be suit-
able for production of low-emission petrol. SPP was placed in receivership in 2003, and by
July 2004, Queensland Energy Resources announced an end to the Stuart Shale Oil project
in Australia.
Brazil has produced oil from oil shale since 1935. Small demonstration oil-production
plants were built in the 1970s and 1980s, with small-scale production continuing today.
China has been mining oil shale to a limited degree since the 1920s near Fushun, but the
low price of crude oil has kept production levels down. Russia has been mining its reserves
on a small-scale basis since the 1930s.
Oil shale retorting was also carried out in Fushun, Manchuria in 1929 and, while
under the control of the Japanese during World War II, production reached a rate of
152,000 gal/day (575,000 L/day) of crude shale oil. It has been estimated that production
of the Chinese oil shale industry in the mid-1970s was expanded from 1.7 to 2.7 million
gallons per day (6.5–9.5 million liters per day).
In the United States many pilot-retorting processes have been tested for short peri-
ods. Among the largest were a semicommercial-size retort operated by Union Oil in the
late 1950s, which processed 1100 tons/day of high-grade shale. A pilot plant operated by
TOSCO (The Oil Shale Corporation) processed 900 tons/day of high-grade shale in the early
1970s. For a shale grade of 37 gal/ton (140 L/day), these feed rates correspond, respectively,
to production of 43,500 gal/day (165,000 L/day) and 357,000 gal/day (135,000 L/day) of
crude shale oil.
Oil distilled from shale was first burnt for horticultural purposes in the nineteenth cen-
tury, but it was not until the 1900s that larger investigations were made and the Office of
Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves was established in 1912. The reserves were seen as
a possible emergency source of fuel for the military, particularly the U.S. Navy, which had,
at the beginning of the twentieth century, converted its ships from coal to fuel oil, and the
nation’s economy was transformed by gasoline-fueled automobiles and diesel-fueled trucks
and trains. Concerns have been raised about assuring adequate supplies of liquid fuels at
affordable prices to meet the growing needs of the nation and its consumers.

6.3 OCCURRENCE AND DEVELOPMENT

Oil shale is sedimentary marlstone rock that is embedded with rich concentrations of
organic material known as kerogen. The western oil shale of the United States contains
approximately 15 percent organic material, by weight. By heating oil shale to high tempera-
tures, kerogen can be released and converted to a liquid that, once upgraded, can be refined
into a variety of liquid fuels, gases, and high-value chemical and mineral byproducts.
Oil shale represents a large and mostly untapped source of hydrocarbon fuels. Like oil
sands, it is an unconventional or alternate fuel source and it does not contain oil. Oil is
produced by thermal decomposition of the kerogen, which is intimately bound within the
shale matrix and is no readily extractable.