The Importance of Drilling Down
The Importance of Drilling Down
October is a busy month for us as we commence a drilling program which will include most of QER’s eight kerogen shale deposits.
If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that QER has comprehensively demonstrated using our Paraho technology to sustainably produce high quality Australian made fuel from the kerogen ore located near Gladstone. The proposed program will investigate the processing properties and requirements of the other deposits around Central Queensland.
While our engineers would like us to process exactly the same rock day after day, that’s not what nature put in the ground. The geology and therefore the properties of the ore varies from one deposit to another and even between different geological units in each deposit.
Rock obtained from drilling at each of the deposits will be crushed and dried here in Gladstone and have some basic tests completed on it. Then we’ll pack up samples and send them to our sister company in Colorado where they will be put through a mini-process to understand how each unit behaves.
We don’t expect to see major differences between the different ore types, but this work will confirm that, identify any idiosyncrasies involved processing each type of shale, and help us work out the economics of projects at each deposit.
We’re busy supporting the drillers and getting the samples ready for processing. As always, our central focus has been making sure that the whole program runs safely, and working closely with the small number of landholders where the drilling is happening. It’s a part of the job I really enjoy and an opportunity to connect with some really terrific people working hard to make a living on the land.
This ‘drilling down’ into the properties of different ore types will be ongoing through next year. It will bring our vision of Queensland-made fuel closer, helping offset Australia’s heavy reliance on overseas imports for the transport fuel that keeps the country moving and keeps our regional communities connected.