Milton Maciel, EnergyResources
As the Shale oil discussion heats up, I’d like to offer a modest collaboration on the topic. I live 70 miles from a Petrobras’ shale mining and refining site in Brazil. It operates commercially since 1992 and I have been using some of their agricultural products for my clients for a long time. Guys working there insist in affirming it’s the only commercial shale unit operating in the world, something that, for me, is hard to believe.

Anyway, what I find of utmost importance is that shale exploitation produces a series of more than THIRTY different products, for energetic, chemical, agricultural, pavement, ceramics, glass, cement and building industries. It is not, by any means, a matter of OIL ONLY. Those co-products represent an aggregated value that is higher than that of the oil-gas obtained. This makes a small or medium sized shale unit an interesting multiple stage operation. Considering only the energetic products, the cost is now US$25.00/BOE.

The Petrosix process of Petrobras is still the old retort method, processing shale at 480 degrees Celsius, and it works fine, with excellent economical return. That Shell process for USA shale seems to me an energy guzzler excrescence and a needless time wasting. USA engineers could improve the Petrosix process easily and adapt it to their own local needs, converting that immense shale reserves in tenths of useful products besides oil, naphtha and gas in a very short interval of time and with minimal energy expenditure. But, please, don’t you take wrong: I’m not saying that this would SOLVE the USA problem of oil shortage, that is ‘orders of magnitude’ higher.

Full Article:
Shale Oil and Co-products