REVIEW OF OIL SHALE RESEARCH IN AUSTRALIA Peter G. Alfredson Division of Energy Chemistry Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization Private Mail Bag 7 Sutherland, NSW 2232 AUSTRALIA ABSTRACT In the last five years, there has been a major increase in oil shale research in Australia in parallel with economic feasibility studies of the exploitation of the major Julia Creek, Rundle and Condor deposits. The results of these studies and the status of research being carried out primarily in government and university research laboratories are summarised. The scope of this research includes geology, petrology and geochemistry of oil shales, retorting chemistry and kinetics, upgrading of shale oils and environmental studies. INTRODUCTION The oil shocks of the 1970s generated an immediate and urgent worldwide interest in synfuels. In the Australian context, this interest was a result of diminishing indigenous petroleum resources with a corresponding anticipated decline in production by the late 1980s, a desire to reduce the level of petroleum imports in view of their increasing cost, concern about the security of supplies from the Middle East, and the perception that the cost of synfuels was not much more than world oil prices. There have been significant changes in some of these factors in the last two years, e.g. the fall in world oil prices and the easing of supply, discoveries of new Australian oil and gas fields (both on- and off-shore), and significant increases in the estimated production costs for synfuels, which have reduced the apparent urgency for synfuels production. However, Australian self-sufficiency in oil is still estimated to fall from a peak of more than 85 per cent in the mid-1980s to under 60 per cent in the year 2000(1). Meanwhile the timescale for development of a major synfuels industry remains of the order of 10 to 20 years. Oil from shale is one of the attractive options for the production of synfuels in view of the large Australian resources. Economic feasibility studies of the exploitation of the major Julia Creek, Condor and Rundle deposits have been carried out in the last five years and there has been a significant parallel expansion of oil shale research. The scope of this research is outlined in the Australian Department of Resources and Energy's "Compendium of Australian Energy Research, Development and Demonstration Projects No. 5, June 1984" (2) and the papers presented at the First and Second Australian Workshops on Oil Shale held, respectively, in 1983 and 1984(3,4). This paper briefly describes Australia's oil shale resources and the results of the feasibility studies, and reviews the status of oil shale research in Australia. OIL SHALE RESOURCES Oil was produced from oil shale in Australia for most of the period from 1865 to 1952 and these early operations have been described previously(5,6) . They were based on high grade torbanite in New South Wales and tasmanite in Tasmania, but the remaining quantities of these very high grade (up to 800 L t-l) materials are so small that they are of no significance for a future large-scale Australian synfuels industry. Australia's major oil shale resources (Table 1) are located in Queensland (Figure 1) with in situ shale oil resources exceeding 7 x 10^ m3. TABLE 1. AUSTRALIAN OIL SHALE RESOURCES Deposit In -situ Shale Av arage Reference Oi 1 Resources Oil Yield (IO6 m3) L fl Condor 1500 66 Duaringa 600 82 Nagoorin 400 91 Lowmead 120 84 > (7) Rundle 400 100 Stuart 400 94 Yaamba 450 95 Julia Creek 3200 70 (8) All of these deposits are of Tertiary age except for the Cretaceous Julia Creek deposit(9). The Julia Creek deposit is part of the extensive Toolebuc Formation which stretches from the Gulf of Carpentaria through the 0271-0315/85/0018-0162 $00.20 162 1985 Colorado School of Mines
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REVIEW OF OIL SHALE RESEARCH IN AUSTRALIA
Peter G. Alfredson
Division of Energy ChemistryCommonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization
Private Mail Bag 7
Sutherland, NSW 2232
AUSTRALIA
ABSTRACT
In the last five years, there has been a major
increase in oil shale research in Australia in
parallel with economic feasibility studies of the
exploitation of the major Julia Creek, Rundle and
Condor deposits. The results of these studies and
the status of research being carried out primarily
in government and university research laboratories
are summarised. The scope of this research includes
geology, petrology and geochemistry of oil shales,
retorting chemistry and kinetics, upgrading of shale
oils and environmental studies.
INTRODUCTION
The oil shocks of the 1970s generated an
immediate and urgent worldwide interest in
synfuels. In the Australian context, this interest
was a result of diminishing indigenous petroleum
resources with a corresponding anticipated decline
in production by the late 1980s, a desire to reduce
the level of petroleum imports in view of their
increasing cost, concern about the security of
supplies from the Middle East, and the perception
that the cost of synfuels was not much more than
world oil prices.
There have been significant changes in some of
these factors in the last two years, e.g. the fall
in world oil prices and the easing of supply,
discoveries of new Australian oil and gas fields
(both on-and off-shore), and significant increases
in the estimated production costs for synfuels,
which have reduced the apparent urgency for synfuels
production. However, Australian self-sufficiency in
oil is still estimated to fall from a peak of more
than 85 per cent in the mid-1980s to under 60 per
cent in the year 2000(1). Meanwhile the timescale
for development of a major synfuels industry remains
of the order of 10 to 20 years.
Oil from shale is one of the attractive options
for the production of synfuels in view of the large
Australian resources. Economic feasibility studies
of the exploitation of the major Julia Creek, Condor
and Rundle deposits have been carried out in the
last five years and there has been a significant
parallel expansion of oil shale research.
The scope of this research is outlined in
the Australian Department of Resources and
Energy's "Compendium of Australian Energy
Research, Development and Demonstration Projects
No. 5, June1984"
(2) and the papers presented at
the First and Second Australian Workshops on Oil
Shale held, respectively, in 1983 and 1984(3,4).
This paper briefly describes Australia's oil
shale resources and the results of the
feasibility studies, and reviews the status of
oil shale research in Australia.
OIL SHALE RESOURCES
Oil was produced from oil shale in
Australia for most of the period from 1865 to
1952 and these early operations have been
described previously(5,6) . They were based on
high grade torbanite in New South Wales and
tasmanite in Tasmania, but the remaining
quantities of these very high grade (up to
800 L t-l) materials are so small that they are
of no significance for a future large-scale
Australian synfuels industry.
Australia's major oil shale resources (Table
1) are located in Queensland (Figure 1) with in
situ shale oil resources exceeding 7 x10^
m3.
TABLE 1. AUSTRALIAN OIL SHALE RESOURCES
Deposit In-situ Shale Av arage Reference
Oi 1 Resources Oil Yield
(IO6m3) L
fl
Condor 1500 66
Duaringa 600 82
Nagoorin 400 91
Lowmead 120 84 > (7)
Rundle 400 100
Stuart 400 94
Yaamba 450 95
Julia Creek 3200 70 (8)
All of these deposits are of Tertiary age except
for the Cretaceous Julia Creek deposit(9).
The Julia Creek deposit is part of the
extensive Toolebuc Formation which stretches
from the Gulf of Carpentaria through the
0271-0315/85/0018-0162 $00.20 162 1985 Colorado School of Mines
Townsville
Proserpine
YAAMBAA
DUARINGAA JkRUNDLE
STUART^%GiQdstone
NAGOORINA^s
LOWMEAD
FIGURE 1. QUEENSLAND OIL SHALE DEPOSITS
south-western corner of Queensland into northern New
South Wales and South Australia. It consists
predominantly of black carbonaceous and bituminous
shale and siltstone with limestone lenses and
coquinites, and has an average total thickness of
22 m including 7 m of oil shale. The Julia Creek
deposit lies within 20 m of the surface and is
therefore amenable to open pit mining. The oil
shale is considered to have formed in a relatively
restricted marine basin.
By contrast, the Tertiary deposits formed in a
fresh-water lacustrine environment. There are two
main oil shale types -
a normal brown oil shale
and a black carbonaceous oil shale whose
properties are comparable with those of a brown
coal. The Tertiary deposits comprise exceedingly
thick sedimentary sequences (up to 1000 m) and
are also amenable to open pit mining.
Typical properties of these oil shales are
summarised in Table 2. By comparison with Green
River shale, the Queensland oil shales are much
more variable, generally give a lower oil yield
(factor of 2), have a higher moisture content
(factor of 10) and, except for Julia Creek, are
not associated with carbonate minerals. Because
of these differences, processes and technology
developed for Green River shale cannot simply be
transferred to Queensland shales without further
research, development and demonstration.
ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY STUDIES
Economic feasibility studies have been
carried out on the exploitation of the Julia
Creek(lO), Rundle(ll) and Condor (12) deposits
and the published results are compared in
Table 3. Dravo, Superior, Lurgi and Tosco
technologies were generally considered in these
studies. A pre-feasibility study of the mining
and infrastructure requirements for the Yaamba
deposit has also been reported( 13) .
The Rundle and Condor studies were under
taken as joint ventures between Southern Pacific
Petroleum NL/Central Pacific Minerals NL
(SPP/CPM) and Esso Exploration and Production
Australia Inc. and Japan Australia Oil Shale
Corporation (JAOSCO), respectively, and completed
in 1984. The Rundle study (with Esso as
operator) was part of a work program, costing
more than A$32 million during 1981-84, which
involved investigations of mine planning, shale
Deposit
TABLE 2 - TYPICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SOME AUSTRALIAN OIL SHALES
Average Dominant
Oil Yield, Kerogen
L t"1 Type
Dominant Moisture, H/C Ratio
Mineralogy wt % wet of Kerogen
basis
Condor 66 I Clay/quartz 8 1.4
Duaringa 82 I Clay 32 1.5
Nagoorin 91 III, I Clay 26 1.1
Julia Creek 70 II, III Calcite/silica 5 1.4
Lowmead 84 I, III Clay 23 n.a
Rundle 100 I Clay 20 1.6
Stuart 94 I Clay 19 1.6
Yaamba 95 I, III n.a. 28 n.a
163
TABLE 3. SUMMARY OF COST ESTIMATES FROM FEASIBILITY
STUDIES
RundleJulia
Creek Stage I Stages
I - III
Condor
Oil shale
throughput
tonnes /day 240 000 25 000 125 000 200 000
Shale oil
production,
barrels/day 100 000 15 800 81 800 82 100
Average oper
ating cost $15.16* n.a. n.a. 20
US$/barrel
Investment 5 750* 645 2650 2300
cost,US$106
Cost reference 1980 mid-1983 mid-1983 mid-1983
year
Reference (10) (11) (11) (12)
* Costs in $A
retorting, product upgrading, infrastructure and
environment. Pilot plant testing of Rundle oil
shale was carried out in the United States, The
Federal Republic of Germany and Sweden(ll). Esso
and SPP/CPM have recently announced agreement( 14) on
a continuation of the Rundle project as a joint
venture with Esso funding further development up to
a maximum period of 10 years.
The Condor study was carried out during 1982-84
by an engineering team staffed equally by Japanese
and Australian participants, supported by
independent international contractors, within a
total budget of US$24 million funded by JAOSCO.
JAOSCO shareholders comprise the Japan National Oil
Shale Corporation and 40 major Japanese companies.
The results of the study indicate that a development
of the Condor oil shale deposit would be feasible
under the assumptions incorporated in the study(12).
Discussions between SPP/CPM and JAOSCO are
continuing. A bulk sample of Condor oil shale was
excavated and shipped to Japan in late 1984 for
pilot plant retorting studies by the Japan Oil Shale
Engineering Co. A total of 82 000 tonnes of
overburden was removed, 39 000 tonnes of fresh oil
shale was mined, crushed and screened to produce
20 000 tonnes of product of the required size(15).
The earlier CSR Ltd study of the Julia Creek
project, which was finalised in 1980, assumed Tosco
technology, with raw shale also burned to provide
process fuel for retorting( 10) . An improved
retorting technology( 16,17) is under development
which involves fluidized bed combustion of spent
shale to provide process fuel and project power,
recycle of hot shale ash as a heat transfer
medium, with combustion and retorting carried
out under conditions in which the high calcite
content of the shale feed is used to eliminate
environmental and waste disposal problems.
Spent shale combustion is carried out at about
900C to allow the ash recirculation rate to be
as low as possible (1-1.5 times the raw shale
feedrate), and to decompose calcite which then
stabilises silica in the combustor in the form
of calcium silicate. Other important features
of the process are the exothermic reactions
which take place inside the mixer/retort and
allow cold raw shale to be fed to the process.
They include the reaction of sulphur compounds,
carbon dioxide and water vapour from retorting
with free lime in the shale ash, which makes the
production of hydrogen for shale oil upgrading
from the retort gas easier and cheaper. A l\
year study to test some of the features of this
new process in a 0.2-0.5 t d~l pilot plant in
Sydney has commenced ( 18) .
The Julia Creek and Condor studies
indicated that capital costs are divided
approximately equally between mining, retorting,
shale oil upgrading and the rest (including
infrastructure and environment). The major
operating costs are associated with the same
components, the mining costs being somewhat
higher. Although improvements in oil yields
from retorting may have the greatest impact,
since they also reduce mining requirements,
research into improved technology and processes
for mining, beneficiation of the oil shale fed
to retorts, shale oil upgrading, and the
resolution of environmental problems at accept
able costs all warrant serious consideration.
The importance of environmental studies for
those deposits close to the Queensland coast and
the Great Barrier Reef (Condor, Rundle, Stuart)
cannot be under-stated.
OIL SHALE RESEARCH PROJECTS
Table 4 summarises the scope of oil shale
research in Australia which has been published
or is in the public domain. It is not complete
for industrial research, e.g. involving the
164
TABLE 4. SUMMARY OF OIL SHALE RESEARCH IN AUSTRALIA
Organisations Involved
Topic
Tertiary CSIRO Divisions Industry and
Institutions Others
Characterisation -
geology, petro ANU, JCU, Me lb, EC, FF, M, ME BMR, CSR, MRL,