STUART OIL SHALE PROJECT MAKES FIRST OIL SHIPMENT

In May the Stuart Oil Shale Project made its first oil shipment, exporting over 40,000 barrels of Medium Shale Oil (MSO) to the Southeast Asian fuel oil market.

This was an important milestone for the Stuart Project. It was the first oil shipment and first revenue from the project. Although this shipment was relatively small, it is a significant step in establishing markets for Stuart oil products, which include MSO and naphtha.

A top priority with this initial shipment was to execute a safe and effective loading. The loading occurred at Fisherman’s Landing wharf near Gladstone and it is the first time these facilities have been used for oil shipments. Oil is pipelined directly from product tanks at the plant to the wharf where it is loaded onto double hulled tankers using specially built liquid handling facilities.

In preparation for this shipment, Southern Pacific Petroleum NL and Central Pacific Minerals NL’s operating team, in conjunction with the Gladstone Port Authority and other government agencies, underwent training in safe and efficient ship loading procedures. Several exercises were also conducted over a period of a month to test preparations, all of which resulted in a flawless loadout executed on schedule.

The naphtha produced from the Stage 1 plant has a low sulfur content of less than 1 part per million. This makes it an ideal feedstock in manufacturing the low-sulfur transportation fuels called for in the Australian Federal Government’s national fuel quality standards for gasoline and diesel announced on May 8, 2001.


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