A second round of pilot plant testing has ‘ticked all the right boxes’ as QEM fine tunes vanadium and oil extraction plans, according to managing director Gavin Loyden.

QEM is advancing its Julia Creek vanadium and oil shale project, 6km east from the township of Julia Creek in North-West Queensland.

Following on from a promising first round of bench-scale pilot plant testing at the Melbourne headquarters of HRL Technology Group last month, the second round has delivered improved vanadium and oil extraction rates with a larger sample size.

“To put it simply, these test results are excellent,” Mr Loyden said.

“The pilot plant modifications made after test T1 led to significantly improved operation for test T2.

“We have achieved increased extraction yields across both vanadium and oil, eliminated the deposit build-up issues, and demonstrated the effective operation of the pilot plant once again.

“We have enhanced the confidence in our extraction process beyond laboratory scale test work, which was our primary objective in these early tests.

“We will now continue this good work to assess additional optimisation potential, through adjustments to operating parameters.”

Vanadium extraction values above 90 per cent were achieved in test T2 for two samples roasted at 700°C and 900°C with a 24-hour leach time.

Estimated oil yield for T2 increased to 12.5 dry wt per cent (as collected sample) and 13 dry wt per cent (washed
sample).

QEM said the latest results also indicated that the oil yields achieved from the pilot plant were about 170 per cent greater than yields reported under a Modified Fischer Assay (MFA). In comparison, the T1 tests delivered oil yields up to 142 per cent of yields reported under an MFA.

MFA is the industry standard used to measure the oil yield in litres per tonne of kerogen (oil equivalent) in the oil shale at zero moisture.