Evaluation of oil produced from the microwave retorting of Australian shales

✍ Scribed by Douglas H. Bradhurst; Howard K. Worner

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 355 KB
• Volume: 75
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-2361
• DOI: 10.1016/0016-2361(95)00232-4

✦ Synopsis

Research carried out at the Microwave Applications Research Centre (MARC) funded under the National Energy Research, Development and Demonstration Program (NERDDP) has shown that microwave retorting of two Australian shales, from Leigh Creek (SA) and Kerosene Creek (Rundle, Queensland) produces oil which has advantages over conventionally retorted oil in terms of its composition. It has a greater proportion of light hydrocarbons and is lower in sulfur and nitrogen content. A 10 1. sample of oil produced by microwave retorting, prepared at MARC Coniston Laboratory was hydrotreated, fractionally distilled and evaluated by BHP Melbourne Research Laboratories, Mulgrave. A positive quality differential (QD) of over a dollar (U.S.) per barrel was calculated as a basis for economic comparison of the hydrotreated product against Saudi Arabian light crude oil. These results indicate that addition of a microwave-retorting stage to a shale processing plant could add value to the oil as a refinery feedstock.