Questerre Energy Corporation has reported on the progress of the internal feasibility study for its oil shale project in Jordan. The company has recently engaged Hatch Ltd, the global engineering firm, to integrate and support its internal work on the technical and economic feasibility of this project. The project would involve a major surface mining operation, with previous work by Millcreek Mining Group indicating Discovered Petroleum Initially in Place (DPIIP) of approximately 12.2 billion barrels of synthetic crude oil at an average grade of 20.12 gpt.
Millcreek also carried out some conceptual mine planning for the production of oil shale feedstock to support a surface retorting/processing facility capable of producing large volumes of synthetic crude oil. The purpose of the conceptual mine planning was to develop preliminary mining costs and identify a potential area(s) favourable to mine development. The mine planning considered all regions within the area where the Lower Rich Horizon (LRH) can be mined at less than a 2:1 volumetric ratio of overburden to ore, and considered maximising ore grade, location to main road and other infrastructure, and minimising the total mining cost per barrel.
On the latest announcement, Michael Binnion, President and Chief Executive Officer, commented, “This is an important milestone. Our preliminary feasibility work has been completed. It has not identified any red flags or unexpected technical challenges. It also suggests this project could be economic at today’s oil prices. We are looking forward to the results of the Hatch integration study later this summer to endorse our internal work.”
Commenting on next steps Binnion added, “Depending on the results of this integration study, we would move to pre-FEED engineering. These results and the subsequent pre-FEED and FEED engineering will form part of the proposed work program for the pre-development phase of a future concession agreement with the Jordanian government.”
Earlier this year, the company completed a review of the last of its nine studies covering all four aspects of the production of crude oil from its project in Jordan. These include mining and feed preparation, retorting, power, including utilities and infrastructure, and marketing and refining. The studies were completed by independent engineering firms including Hatch to develop technical and cost-effective solutions for these processes. Due to the size of the existing Jordanian refining infrastructure and the market for crude products in Jordan, the company has included the costs to upgrade the produced crude oil to finished products including gasoline and diesel. Hatch completed four of the nine studies and will integrate all the studies into an independent assessment. The design basis for this assessment will be an initial project capable of sustaining production of 50,000 bbls/d.
The feasibility study follows the mentioned assessment of the oil shale resource completed by an independent qualified resource evaluator, Millcreek Mining Group, in accordance with National Instrument 51-101 – Standards of Disclosure for Oil and Gas Activities of the Canadian Securities Administrators and the Canadian Oil and Gas Evaluation Handbook (COGE Handbook). The Resource Assessment estimates a best estimate of DPIIP of between 7.8 billion and 12.2 billion barrels.