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Shale Development OIL SHALE DEVELOPMENT • Shale Oil - A Competitive Fuel In the 1960's TElL ERTL' CAMERON & JONES, INC. MEMBER AIME DENVER, COLO. Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/JPT/article-pdf/13/10/983/2213551/spe-69-pa.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 tion yields three products: (1) a high-carbon residue which remains with the rock; (2) a non condensable gas that is chiefly hydrogen and methane; and (3) a condensable gas that is condensed to shale oil. The shale oil recovery may represent up to 70 per cent of the fuel value of the origi­ nal organic matter (Fig. 3). Oil shales of commercial interest yield 5 to 15 weight per cent shale oil. Shale oil may be considered a protein or carbohydrate, in contrast to petroleum which is a hydrocarbon. The molecules of shale oil are thought to contain not only carbon and hydrogen, but also oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur. A high percentage of the molecules are unsaturated. The organic matter in the oil shale or the shale oil, itself, often is referred to as kerogen (which means wax-forming) be­ cause much wax can be crystallized from shale oils. Oil Shale Resources Some of the oil-shale deposits, such as the Chattanooga black shales of the United States and the Irati oil shale of southern Brazil, underlie more than 100,000 sq miles of area. Others, like the Swedish K varntorp deposit, the Spanish Puertollano deposit and the German Messel deposit, occur in basins only a few square miles in area. The important deposits of the world, in which enough exploration has been done to designate reserves of oil Original manuscript received in Society of Petroleum Engineers office Fi~. I-Dr. Joaquim Maia, Superintendente Fundacao Gor­ April 5, 1961. Revised manuscript received Aug. 3, 1961. selX (an organization to encourage mining and metallurgi­ ';' The author is currently located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. where he is in charge of work Cameron and Jones, Inc., is performing in con­ cal education) of Ouro Preto, Brazil, examines a piece of junction with Petrobras. the national Brazilian oil company. Irati oil shale taken from the large pile in the hackground. OCTonER, 1961 SPE 69 983 shale, are the Green River deposits of Colorado, Utah in the U. S. The present Scottish shale-oil extraction plants and Wyoming in the U. S., and the Irati deposit in the are basically those invented, built and used before the turn states of Sao Paulo, Parana, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande of the century, except as their throughput and efficiency do SuI in Brazil. The Green River deposit in Colorado have been raised considerably by skilled engineering. The has been shown by the U. S. Geological Survey to have Spanish, who decided to build their oil-shale plant during a reserve of more than 1,000 billion bbl of shale oil in World War II for reasons of speed and availability of an area of about 1,000 sq miles. The reserves in designs and material, erected a Scottish-type retorting plant Utah and Wyoming have not been extensively explored. and are operating it well. The French, who experimented Although the Irati deposit has been mapped along 1,000 with many types of retorts, have abandoned them all­ miles of outcrop, it has been explored by detailed drilling due in large part to the cost of mining their thin, deep only in an area near the town of Sao Mateus do SuI in oil-shale deposits. Because of great depths and difficult southern Parana. There, an area of 35 sq miles has a mining conditions, the cost of mining in Scotland is about recoverable reserve of 600 million bbl. All present evi­ $4.50/ton, or about $8.00/bbl of liquid recovered. Still dence indicates that further exploration of the Irati forma­ the Scottish industry continues, though at a diminishing tion will increase the reserve to many billions, if not rate. hundreds of billions, of barrels. Therefore, both the Green Most of Spain's lubricating oil and candle wax is manu­ River and Irati oil shales will be sources of liquid fuels at factured from shale oil, and a modern industrial complex least as important as the major petroleum-producing areas is based on the production of 3,000 tons/day of oil shale. of the world. In Sweden, low-cost mining, skillful retort development work and thorough utilization of the low-grade oil shale Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/JPT/article-pdf/13/10/983/2213551/spe-69-pa.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 Industrial DeVelopment have resulted in the commercial production of sulfur. chemicals and lime in addition to oil. In Germany, two The writer has seen the oil-shale plants in Sweden, private plants use oil shale profitably, although one uses Spain, Scotland and Germilny that are operating now­ it chiefly as a source material for cement (including thc also those in France, Germany and Scotland which have contained heat value), and the other as a source of liquid been abandoned. He has also been associated closely with fuels and also as a raw material for artificial building the work done in the U. S. by the U. S. Bureau of Mines stone. The Dotternhausen plant fluidizes the oil shale; the and the Union Oil Co. of California, and with the work Messel plant uses a retorting plant built before the turn being done in Brazil by Petrobras, the Brazilian national of the century. oil company. China and Russia both have active oil-shale industries. Some of the European developments date from the The Chinese industry is reported to be yielding oil at a middle of the 19th century, during which time oil-shale rate of 40,000 B/D, and a tenfold increase is contemplat­ plants existed not only in Scotland and France, but also ed. The gas supply for the city of Leningrad is reported to be supplied from Estonian oil shale. Production Techniques The production of shale oil has been chiefly a matter of mining the rock, then distilling the organic matter in a retort. Sweden obtains shale oil both from retorts and from an in situ method. Several American oil companies have experimented with in situ retorting with unan­ nounced results. Mining Where the deposits are close to the surface as in Kvarntorp, Sweden, Dotternhausen, Germany, or southern Brazil, modern surface mining techniques can be used. Fig, 2-Coronel Martin's Mine, a small mine in the Irati oil-shale formation at Sao Mateus do SuI in the Brazilian Fig. 3-This 30-lh pile of rich oil shale yields ,tate of Parana, shows the flat-bedded nature of oil shale. about Yl-gal of oil. JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY These include stripping the overburden with draglines or the vessel which is a section of a circular cone. The top of bucket-wheel excavators, and drilling and shooting the the vessel is open and the spent shale spills over the top. exposed oil shale to loosen it' so that it can be loaded Air is drawn into the top of the retort. The oxygen of the by large shovels either into trucks or onto conveyor belts air unites with the high-carbon residue of the retorted oil for transportation to the retorting plant. shale to heat the products of combustion well above the Where the deposit is hundreds of feet underground, as temperature of decomposition of the organic matter in the in western Colorado, the oil shale cannot be mined eco­ oil shale. As the hot gases are drawn downward they nomically by surface methods. Colorado oil shale is how­ cool as they heat the upcoming oil shale, at the same time ever, a strong rock in which large unsupported op~nings mixing with the noncondensable and condensable gases can be excavated safely. The openings are so large (Fig. that are emitted or expelled by the decomposing organic 4) that automatic drilling equipment can be used, the matter. The mixed gases continue downward in the retort blasting operations can be mechanized, and the broken contacting the upcoming cold oil shale, are cooled and the oil shale can be loaded and transported by the same ef­ condensable portions of the gas condense to shale oil. ficient means used by surface mines. Because no over­ The shale oil gathers in the bottom of the retort and is burden must be removed, the cost of mining oil shale withdrawn continuously. The cold incoming oil shale from underground in the Piceanoe Creek basin is of the passes through shale oil, and the cold outgoing products same order of magnitude as mining from the surface at of combustion mixed with the non condensable shale gas modern, low-cost mines. are drawn through the seal of shale oil. The Union retort, in one vessel, produces spent shale, shale oil and a com­ Retorting bustible mixed gas from oil shale. The spent shale is dis­ The oil shale is crushed and screened before being fed carded, the shale oil is sent to a refinery and the com­ Downloaded from http://onepetro.org/JPT/article-pdf/13/10/983/2213551/spe-69-pa.pdf by guest on 01 October 2021 into the retorts. Most retorts use fist-size or larger pieces bustible gas is used as a source of heat and power. of oil shale. The tY.Je of retorts used in Western Europe process from 1 to 20 tons/day. They are externally heat­ In the gas combustion retort the oil shale is fed into the ed, a method that limits the size of the retort and one top, and retorted oil shale with part of the carbon burned which results in uneven heating of the oil shale.
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