Blasting technology for modified in-situ oil shale retorts
Occidental Oil Shale, Inc., an equal partner with Tenneco Shale Oil Company in the Cathedral Bluffs Shale Oil Company, has spent since 1972 developing and demonstrating its modified in situ oil shale process at its Logan Wash mine near Debeque, Colorado. The Occidental modified in situ process consists of first mining out a limited amount of rock from within an underground retort volume to allow the explosive expansion of the surrounding rock into the mined void volumes. The explosive expansion forms a large underground rubble bed contained within a retort chamber which must contain a fairly uniform particle size distribution and void redistribution to provide reasonable oil recovery during subsequent in situ processing operations. The processing involves first igniting the top of the rubble pile and then injecting air into the top of the retort to drive the combustion front downward through the entire rubblized volume. The oil is continuously collected at the bottom of the retort during the processing. Two side-by-side commercial-sized retorts, Retorts 7 and 8, have recently been constructed at the Logan Wash mine using newly developed horizontal free-face blasting technology. Retorts 7 and 8 were blasted in February and April of 1981, respectively, each using nearly 550,000 lbs. of explosives in ANFO equivalent loaded within nearly 550 blastholes for each retort. The resulting rubble beds were about 230-ft high with cross-sections of approximately 27,225 ft/sup 2/. The blasting principles used to construct these commercial-sized retorts and the rubblization results are described in detail in this paper.
- Research Organization:
- Cathedral Bluffs Shale Oil Co.
- OSTI ID:
- 5394127
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-820927-
- Journal Information:
- Soc. Pet. Eng. AIME, Pap.; (United States), Vol. SPE10997; Conference: 57. AIME Society of Petroleum Engineers annual technical conference and exhibition, New Orleans, LA, USA, 26 Sep 1982
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Cathedral Bluffs: pushing to the outer limits for 94,000 bbl/d of shale oil
Oil shale-A new frontier
Related Subjects
COLORADO
EXPLOSIVE FRACTURING
OIL SHALE DEPOSITS
MODIFIED IN-SITU PROCESSES
DEMONSTRATION PROGRAMS
OIL SHALES
IN-SITU RETORTING
RETORTS
OPERATION
COMBUSTION
FLOW RATE
FLUID FLOW
PRESSURE DROP
RESERVOIR ROCK
BITUMINOUS MATERIALS
CARBONACEOUS MATERIALS
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
CHEMICAL REACTORS
COMMINUTION
DECOMPOSITION
DISTILLATION EQUIPMENT
ENERGY SOURCES
EQUIPMENT
FEDERAL REGION VIII
FOSSIL FUELS
FRACTURING
FUELS
GEOLOGIC DEPOSITS
IN-SITU PROCESSING
MATERIALS
MINERAL RESOURCES
NORTH AMERICA
OXIDATION
PROCESSING
RESOURCES
RETORTING
THERMOCHEMICAL PROCESSES
USA
040401* - Oil Shales & Tar Sands- In Situ Methods
True & Modified