Oil Shale - an economic alternative?

sam76 · 27 February 2008

Is this a cost effective alternative with oil at $100?

Are there any geo's/oil gurus who can elaborate?

I'm looking at a company that is developing a cheap extraction process, but i want to know if the stuff is actually any good.

with thanks

The various attempts to develop the world's oil shale deposits, over a period of over 150 years, have experienced successes when the cost of shale oil production in a given region was less than the price of crude oil or its other substitutes.[39] According to a survey conducted by the RAND Corporation, a surface retorting complex (comprising a mine, retorting plant, upgrading plant, supporting utilities, and spent shale reclamation) is unlikely to be profitable in the United States until crude oil prices range between US$70 to US$95 per barrel (in 2005 dollars).[25]

Once commercial plants are in operation and experience-based learning takes place, costs are expected to decline in 12 years to US$35–US$48 per barrel. After production of 1,000 million barrels, costs are estimated to decline further to US$30 – US$40 per barrel.[34] Royal Dutch Shell has announced that its in-situ extraction technology in Colorado could be competitive at prices over US$30 per barrel, while other technologies at full-scale production assert profitability at oil prices even lower than US$20 per barrel.[40][41][42][43] To increase the efficiency of oil shale retorting, several co-pyrolysis processes have been proposed and tested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale

numbercruncher · 27 February 2008

Abolutely is and this is a huge resource for the US, I expect they will have Oil independence within a decade. They reckon there is 3t recoverable barrels worldwide, 60pc of which is in the US.

Can even turn Coal into diesel, and the US is the Saudia Arabia of coal

Not to mention food = fuel (biodiesel/Ethanol), plenty of choice farmland in the West to grow fuel.

Only thing I wonder, is why arnt they doing it now ? All I can think is bleed the ME dry of Oil then they are toast ? Other option could be the US Gov didnt read any Peak Oil blogs

I think Shell has done alot of work in this field, they like heat the shale under ground to a certain temperature then pump it out, Just the right temperature makes a nice Sweet crude I understand

grace · 27 February 2008

If you want local exposure to oil shale look at

GRV Greenvale Mining

They are hiring something from the US in 2nd qtr I think to start the process.

Greenvale, together with Esperance Minerals hold the biggest oil shale deposit in Australia. Market cap currently valued at something rediculous like 1c per barrel (don't quote me on that), but purely speculative at this stage. Also oil shale could be used to reduce carbon emmissions on coal-fired power station - govt yet to throw money to Greenvale for that yet.

I hold. Believe it or not, these are fairly tightly held - everyone just sitting on them until we turn grey!

Smurf1976 · 27 February 2008

numbercruncher said:
Abolutely is and this is a huge resource for the US, I expect they will have Oil independence within a decade. They reckon there is 3t recoverable barrels worldwide, 60pc of which is in the US.

Can even turn Coal into diesel, and the US is the Saudia Arabia of coal

Not to mention food = fuel (biodiesel/Ethanol), plenty of choice farmland in the West to grow fuel.

Only thing I wonder, is why arnt they doing it now ? All I can think is bleed the ME dry of Oil then they are toast ? Other option could be the US Gov didnt read any Peak Oil blogs

I think Shell has done alot of work in this field, they like heat the shale under ground to a certain temperature then pump it out, Just the right temperature makes a nice Sweet crude I understand

If only it were that easy in practice.

Crude oil flows from the ground with virtually no effort. All the others require massive effort and expense. To say they are an alternative is like saying walking is an alternative to riding the train - technically correct but its utility is vastly lower and would at best be a very limited replacement.

IMO there's more chance of me landing on Mars than these heavy oil sources reaching output comparable to present day crude oil production at any point this side of 2050.

As for biofuels, I'll just say this. The energy you eat this week would, if converted with 100% efficiency, produce 2 litres of petrol. Not enough to even run the tractors, trucks etc to grow the stuff in the first place. And good luck with that 100% conversion efficiency...

That's not to say that someone won't make money out of shale. But they'll need some technology that works without the persistent fires, vapour leaks etc that have plagued attempts thus far. Either that or they get permission to absolutely trash the surrounding environment on a scale you wouldn't imagine possible.

Coal liquefaction works however. And should be profitable until such time as scarcity of coal squeezes the margins on the convrsion business - finding a company using low grade coal (brown coal etc) would be ideal. Proven technology there too.

Smurf1976 · 27 February 2008

grace said:
. Also oil shale could be used to reduce carbon emmissions on coal-fired power station

Technically pretty simple. USSR used to have plants running decades ago. Fairly simple mine-mouth operation using conventional boilers, turbines etc. They might still be running but not sure what country they would now be in.

noirua · 27 February 2008

The oil shale boom started in 1980 and then followed the "the long drift downwards". The once giant "Southern Pacific" went under finally in 2003.
Could be another Oil Shale boom again, but watch out for the bust, it's an expensive business.
"Shale Oil Dream leads to company's Collapse": http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/02/1070351580970.html

numbercruncher · 27 February 2008

I think the big problem is water, like 2 barrels needed for every barrel of Oil produced.

The US I understand is getting the ball rolling, The US Bureau of Land management just today held informal meeting for Utah residents about enviromental studys etc I read.

There will be little choice, if the world is indeed running low on Liquid gold, alternatives must be sought. Maybe it will be a flop again, but there sure seems alot of interest, especially at 100 a barrel.

Australia has already produced some in the past. I think the refining tech has come along since too.

There is no oil being extracted from oil shale in Australia. From 2000 to 2004, the Stage 1 demonstration-scale processing plant at the Stuart deposit near Gladstone in central Queensland produced more than 1.5 million barrels of oil using a rotary kiln retort. No oil has been produced since 2004 and the facility is in care and maintenance. However, while design efforts continue on Stage 2 of the development, the facility is maintained in operating condition to allow for any further production testing if required.

http://www.australianminesatlas.gov.au/info/aimr/shale_oil.jsp

1.5m Barrels at todays prices would be nice pay, might want to fire that fella up again !

noirua · 28 February 2008

Canada has the biggest reserves of oil shale and have talked for years about increasing the amount they produce and reducing the need for Canada and America to import oil. (Estonia produces 70% of the Worlds shale oil production.)
Talked about 30 years ago and not that much progress made yet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale

Timmy · 28 February 2008

Might be off topic (good topic thanks Sam) ... is there an issue with CO2 emissions both in the production and the use of shale oil?

noirua · 28 February 2008

Timmy said:
Might be off topic (good topic thanks Sam) ... is there an issue with CO2 emissions both in the production and the use of shale oil?

CO2 and waste are a big problem with shale oil and it requires carbon capture to be used properly. Australia's Stuart Oil Shale Project was put on hold in 2004 because of environmental concerns.

numbercruncher · 28 February 2008

noirua said:
Canada has the biggest reserves of oil shale and have talked for years about increasing the amount they produce and reducing the need for Canada and America to import oil. (Estonia produces 70% of the Worlds shale oil production.)
Talked about 30 years ago and not that much progress made yet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale

I think you have your Oil shale and Tar sands mixed up Noirua.

Canada rules Tar sand world.

US rules Oil Shale world.

dragonball · 9 March 2008

i just read the article about oil sands...they said it's gonna be big in the future.

does oil sands = oil shale ???

and does anyone know any australian company start to explore this alternative oil resource ?

Tysonboss1 · 19 April 2008

Timmy said:
Might be off topic (good topic thanks Sam) ... is there an issue with CO2 emissions both in the production and the use of shale oil?

Yes,...

One of the big problems is that both Oil shale and Oil sands both use massive amounts of natural gas to extract and convert to Oil.

Now when there is already technology available that can turn natural gas into liquid deisel and unleaded substitutes I think using it to produce oil is not the answer

Tysonboss1 · 19 April 2008

dragonball said:
i just read the article about oil sands...they said it's gonna be big in the future.

does oil sands = oil shale ???

and does anyone know any australian company start to explore this alternative oil resource ?

No,

Oil sand is a oily tar type sand/mud compound, it is much closer to conventional oil than shale, If it is sludge enough it can in some cases e pumpd from the ground but mostly it is mined then processed into oil,.... offcourse because it needs to be mined and processed, it is more expensive, slower and more energy intensive thanconventional oil

Oil shale is a sedimentary rock compound, so it in a soild rock state. again needs to be mined how ever the process for turning it into liquid oil is even more expensive and energy intensive than oil sands.

Conventional oil is actually made from oil shale that has been heated and kept under pressure in the earths crust for millions of years,.... Oil sand is sort of half way between shale and liquid oil.

As I said earlier my big problem with oil sand and oil shale are the environmental aspects,.... they create far more CO2 emmissions due to the extra proccessing and also leave scars on th earth from strip mining.

Smurf1976 · 20 April 2008

The biggest problem is non-CO2 emissions.

To make it work, you need to design something that does basically as follows. And it's anything but easy when you think about it. To be economic, it needs to be a continuous process rather than batch production.

1. Continuous feed in of a solid, flammable material.
2. Heat said material to above it's ignition point without it catching fire.
3. Trap all the vapours driven off by this heating.
4. Remove a volume of solid waste that is twice as large as the feed in material.

Now, think about how you'd design this. Conveyor belts and other conventional systems work fine to move the shale and waste around so no problem there. But how do you keep air out and the vapours contained when you've got a constant stream of solid material coming in and out and the whole thing is at hundreds of degrees?

Let the air in and you've got an explosion. Let the vapours out and you'll end up poisoning everything in the area, workers included, and literally oiling the landscape if the weather conditions are right. And of course that's your oil and profits literally blowing away in the wind too.

And in addition to all of that, you need to make the process reasonably energy efficient otherwise it's useless. At the very least, it needs to use less fuel than it produces, preferably a lot less.

If the engineering problems can be fixed then it's a goer. Otherwise it's limited to small scale batch production at very high costs - useful for lubricants, petrochemicals etc once the conventional oil is gone but uneconomic as a major energy source.

sam76 · 15 June 2008

Did anyone watch the Oil Shale segment on 60 minutes tonight?

Albian Sands (?) a BP subsidary eating up the Canadian forests

I can't believe they need to move 4 tonnes of land for every barrel of oil they produce

Sure there may be a lot of oil substitute down there but at what price?

rederob · 15 June 2008

sam76 said:
Did anyone watch the Oil Shale segment on 60 minutes tonight?

Albian Sands (?) a BP subsidary eating up the Canadian forests

I can't believe they need to move 4 tonnes of land for every barrel of oil they produce

Oil SANDS.
Not oil shale.
60 Minutes borrowed the theme from 2.5 years ago.
Wonder when people will see the damage from oil sands mining as too great a cost to bear.

sam76 · 15 June 2008

The segment was actually about both.

But you're right my comments were meant to be about Sands

doogie_goes_off · 15 June 2008

The question was put "an economic alternative?" and the answer may be yes if we see $200/barrel for oil. Is CO2 a problem? Depends where you live. Is finding an energy source to extract oil from shale a problem? depends how clever your government is with incentives for new technology.

For my money it's a long term proposition, probably solved with a chemical solvent that will inevitably turn out to have more side effects than first realised killing the masses when they could have just done clean burning and produced CO2.

The world will turn another day without oil production from oil shales.

rederob · 15 June 2008

sam76 said:
The segment was actually about both.

But you're right my comments were meant to be about Sands

Oil sands might produce 5 million barrels a day in 10 years time.
That will be about 4% of global demand.
Given that the "gap" between output and demand is almost upon us, it's unlikely their efforts will save America.
The oil shale issue is a no brainer. The proponents have no brains.

Oil Shale - an economic alternative?

sam76

numbercruncher

Beware of Dropbears

grace

Smurf1976

Smurf1976

noirua

numbercruncher

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noirua

Timmy

white swans need love too

noirua

numbercruncher

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Tysonboss1

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sam76

rederob

sam76

doogie_goes_off

disbelieve if you can

rederob

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