 | This article needs to be updated.(October 2016) |
Ambre Energy Limited is an Australian coal and oil shale company. It has offices in Brisbane and Salt Lake City.
| This article needs to be updated.(October 2016) |
Ambre Energy Limited is an Australian coal and oil shale company. It has offices in Brisbane and Salt Lake City.
Ambre Energy was founded in June 2005 by Edek Choros, a geologist and mining engineer. In September 2005, Ambre Energy filed a patent for the Hybrid Energy System, a method for processing low value coal and other carbonaceous materials.
In April 2006, Ambre Energy started negotiations with American oil shale technology company Oil-Tech, Inc., incorporated in February 2000 in Utah. Oil-Tech, Inc. was a developer of the Oil-Tech staged electrically heated retort process for the oil shale pyrolysis. In October 2006, Ambre Energy and Oil-Tech established Millennium Synfuels, LLC, which take over property rights of the retorting technology. By 30 June 2007, Ambre Energy acquired 6% of Oil Tech and 17 October 2007, it acquired 35%. Further Oil Tech become a wholly owned subsidiary of Ambre Energy and as of 21 July 2008, was merged into Ambre Energy.
Ambre Energy is planning to build and operate a clean coal gasification plant at Felton Valley, 30 kilometres (19 mi) south west of Toowoomba, Queensland. The plan includes construction of an open-pit coal mine, and carbon capture facility. [1] At the final stage, the plant is expected to produce enough gas for production of 2.8 million tonnes per year of dimethyl ether and generate 650 MW of electricity. It is also expected to produce by-products for fertilizer production, and olefins and plastics manufacturing.
In April 2012, Campbell Newman, the then-incoming Premier of Queensland, rejected the plans, with The Australian reporting that Ambre Energy was "at risk of financial collapse" in the wake of the decision. [2] The company issued an official response to the article refuting the claim, adding that the Felton project "remains in the early investigation stage." [3]
In December 2016, plans to mine in Felton resurfaced after Ambre Energy had two coal exploration permits renewed by the Queensland state government. [4]
In February 2009, it was announced that Ambre Energy were seeking to construct a coal plant in southeastern Montana for US$375 million that would produce up to 4.4 million tons of coal and 1.6 million barrels of synthetic crude annually. [5] The company went on to acquire a 50% share in a mine in Decker, with Cloud Peak Energy owning the other 50%. However, in July 2012, Cloud Peak sued Ambre Energy, alleging that Ambre Energy's export plans for the mine were "developed without Cloud Peak's approval" and that Ambre Energy "intend to keep for themselves a disproportionate share of any potential value of the coal" from the mine. [6] In December 2012, Cloud Peak agreed to sell their share of the mine to Ambre Energy for US$57 million, but in May 2013, it was announced that the deal was being renegotiated. [7]
In November 2010, plans to build a coal export terminal in Longview, Washington, by Millenium Bulk Logistics, a subsidiary of Ambre Energy, were announced. [8] Permits were approved by Cowlitz County commissioners later the same month, [9] but in March 2011, Millenium Bulk Logistics withdrew the plans with an intention to resubmit their application "after doing environmental studies." The initial application provided an exportation target of 5.7 million tons of coal per year, but reports suggested Ambre Energy had plans to export as much as 80 million tons annually. [10] In addition to this project, later plans to build a storage facility in the Port of Morrow and the Port of St. Helens in Oregon faced public opposition and were eventually rejected by state regulators in September 2014, citing potential damage to marine and riparian ecosystems and a potential threat to fishing grounds long used by Native American tribes in the region. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]
In December 2014, Ambre Energy sold all of its North American assets to Denver-based private equity firm Resource Capital Funds for US$18 million, with the new company continuing operations as Ambre Energy North America. [16] In April 2015, Ambre Energy North America changed its name to Lighthouse Resources Inc., but made no changes to the company's leadership. [17]
Ambre Energy operates a small Oil-Tech-type of shale oil extraction pilot plant and 34,000 acres (140 km2) of oil shale leases, approximately 40 miles (64 km) southeast of Vernal, Utah. In Oil-Tech process, crushed oil shale is lifted by a conveyor system to the vertical retort, and is loaded into the retort from the top. The retort consists of a series of connected individual heating chambers, stacked atop each other. Heating rods extend into the centers of each of these chambers. The feed oil shale is heated to increasingly higher temperatures as it moves down the retort, attaining a temperature of 1,000 °F (540 °C) in the lowest chamber. The gases and vapors are vacuumed into a condensing unit. The spent shale is used for pre-heating feed oil shale. [18] [19] The advantages of this technology are its modular design, which enhances its portability and adaptability, its low water requirements, its heating efficiency, and the relatively high quality of the resulting product. [19]
Oil shale is an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general composition of oil shales constitutes inorganic substance and bitumens. Based on their deposition environment, oil shales are classified as marine, lacustrine and terrestrial oil shales. Oil shales differ from oil-bearing shales, shale deposits that contain petroleum that is sometimes produced from drilled wells. Examples of oil-bearing shales are the Bakken Formation, Pierre Shale, Niobrara Formation, and Eagle Ford Formation. Accordingly, shale oil produced from oil shale should not be confused with tight oil, which is also frequently called shale oil.
Fushun is a prefecture level city in Liaoning province, China, about 45 km (28 mi) east of Shenyang, with a total area of 11,272 km2 (4,352 sq mi), 714 km2 (276 sq mi) of which is the city proper. Situated on the Hun River, it is one of the industrial and economic development hubs in Liaoning.
A coal pier is a transloading facility designed for the transfer of coal between rail and ship.
Fushun Mining Group is a large state-owned coal and oil shale company located in Fushun, Liaoning Province, China. The corporation consists of about 30 companies with about 28,000 employees. The main business includes coal mining and oil shale processing. According to figures released by FMG, this company is one of the world's largest shale oil producers.
Joadja is a historic town, now in ruins, in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia, in Wingecarribee Shire. The remnants of the town were added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 5 November 1999.
The oil shale industry is an industry of mining and processing of oil shale—a fine-grained sedimentary rock, containing significant amounts of kerogen, from which liquid hydrocarbons can be manufactured. The industry has developed in Brazil, China, Estonia and to some extent in Germany and Russia. Several other countries are currently conducting research on their oil shale reserves and production methods to improve efficiency and recovery. Estonia accounted for about 70% of the world's oil shale production in a study published in 2005.
Shale oil extraction is an industrial process for unconventional oil production. This process converts kerogen in oil shale into shale oil by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. The resultant shale oil is used as fuel oil or upgraded to meet refinery feedstock specifications by adding hydrogen and removing sulfur and nitrogen impurities.
Environmental impact of the oil shale industry includes the consideration of issues such as land use, waste management, and water and air pollution caused by the extraction and processing of oil shale. Surface mining of oil shale deposits causes the usual environmental impacts of open-pit mining. In addition, the combustion and thermal processing generate waste material, which must be disposed of, and harmful atmospheric emissions, including carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas. Experimental in-situ conversion processes and carbon capture and storage technologies may reduce some of these concerns in future, but may raise others, such as the pollution of groundwater.
The history of the oil shale industry started in ancient times. The modern industrial use of oil shale for oil extraction dates to the mid-19th century and started growing just before World War I because of the mass production of automobiles and trucks and the supposed shortage of gasoline for transportation needs. Between the World Wars oil shale projects were begun in several countries.
Oil shale in China is an important source of unconventional oil. A total Chinese oil shale resource amounts of 720 billion tonnes, located in 80 deposits of 47 oil shale basins. This is equal to 48 billion tonnes of shale oil. At the same time there are speculations that the actual resource may even exceed the oil shale resource of the United States.
There are two kinds of oil shale in Estonia, both of which are sedimentary rocks laid down during the Ordovician geologic period. Graptolitic argillite is the larger oil shale resource, but, because its organic matter content is relatively low, it is not used industrially. The other is kukersite, which has been mined for more than a hundred years. Kukersite deposits in Estonia account for 1% of global oil shale deposits.
The Galoter process is a shale oil extraction technology for the production of shale oil, a type of synthetic crude oil. In this process, the oil shale is decomposed into shale oil, oil shale gas, and spent residue. Decomposition is caused by mixing raw oil shale with hot oil shale ash generated by the combustion of carbonaceous residue (semi-coke) in the spent residue. The process was developed in the 1950s, and it is used commercially for shale oil production in Estonia. There are projects for further development of this technology and expansion of its usage, e.g., in Jordan and the USA.
The Paraho process is an above ground retorting technology for shale oil extraction. The name "Paraho" is delivered from the words "para homem", which means in Portuguese "for mankind".
Energy in Australia is the production in Australia of energy and electricity, for consumption or export. Energy policy of Australia describes the politics of Australia as it relates to energy.
Shandong Energy Group Co. Ltd. is a state owned coal-mining company headquartered in Jinan, Shandong, China. It is among the seven largest Chinese coal companies. The group was created in March 2011 by merging six existing coal mining companies. These companies included Xinwen Mining Group, Zaozhuang Mining Group, Zibo Mining Group, Feicheng Mining Group, Linyi Mining Group and Longkou Mining Group.
There are oil shale deposits in Australia which range from small deposits to large reserves. Deposits, varying by their age and origin, are located in about a third of eastern Australia. In 2012, the demonstrated oil shale reserves were estimated at 58 billion tonnes. The easiest to recover deposits are located in Queensland.
The Glen Davis Shale Oil Works was a shale oil extraction plant, in the Capertee Valley, at Glen Davis, New South Wales, Australia, which operated from 1940 until 1952. It was the last oil-shale operation in Australia, until the Stuart Oil Shale Project in the late 1990s. For the period of 1965–1952, it provided one fifth of the shale oil produced in Australia.
Coal mining in Wyoming has long been a significant part of the state's economy. Wyoming has been the largest producer of coal in the United States since 1986, and in 2018, coal mines employed approximately 1% of the state’s population. In 2013, there were 17 active coal mines in Wyoming, which produced 388 million short tons, 39 percent of all the coal mined in the US, and more than three times the production of second-place West Virginia. Market forces, including the low price of natural gas from the fracking boom—coal's main competition—contributed to the steep drop in coal production in the 2000s as electricity generation switched from coal to gas.
The history of the oil shale industry in the United States goes back to the 1850s; it dates back farther as a major enterprise than the petroleum industry. But although the United States contains the world's largest known resource of oil shale, the US has not been a significant producer of shale oil since 1861. There were three major past attempts to establish an American oil shale industry: the 1850s; in the years during and after World War I; and in the 1970s and early 1980s. Each time, the oil shale industry failed because of competition from cheaper petroleum.
Petroleum refining in the United States in 2013 produced 18.9 million barrels per day of refined petroleum products, more than any other country. Although the US was the world's largest net importer of refined petroleum products as recently as 2008, the US became a net exporter in 2010, and in 2014 was the largest exporter and the largest net exporter of refined petroleum. As of January 2019, there were 135 operating refineries in the US, distributed among 30 states.