Stuart Oil Shale Project

The Stuart Oil Shale Project is an oil shale development project in Yarwun near Gladstone, Queensland, Australia. It is Australia's first major attempt since the 1950s to restart commercial use of oil shale. The project was originally developed by Australian companies Southern Pacific Petroleum NL and Central Pacific Minerals NL (SPP/CPM) and developed now by Queensland Energy Resources. The original facility built at the end of the 1990s was dismantled and the new demonstration facility started its operations in 2011.HistoryIn 1997 SPP/CPM signed a joint venture agreement with the Canadian company Suncor Energy to develop the Stuart oil shale deposit. Suncor was designated as the project operator. In April 2001, Suncor left the project and SPP/CPM became the sole shareholder of the project. In February 2002, due to the restructuring of SPP/CPM, SPP became the holding company for the group's interests, including the Stuart Oil Shale Project. As SPP had granted fixed and floating charges in favour of Sandco Koala LLC in May 2003, the chargee appointed receivers of SPP on 2 December 2003. In February 2004, the Stuart Oil Shale Project was sold by receivers to the newly formed company Queensland Energy Resources, which announced on 21 July 2004 that the plant would be closed for economic and environmental reasons. Greenpeace, which had protested the project, viewed the closure as a major victory.In April 2008, Queensland Energy Resources started to sell the equipment of the plant. On 14 August 2008, Queensland Energy Resources announced that it would replace the Alberta Taciuk Process (ATP) of oil shale processing with Paraho II technology and that it was dismantling the ATP-based plant. The facility was dismantled in 2008–2009, and a new demonstration plant based on the Paraho process was opened in September 2011.