Method of forming an in situ oil shale retort

Mining or in situ disintegration of hard material – Tunnel recovery of fluid material

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299 13, 299 19, E21C 4110

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044239068

ABSTRACT:
An in situ oil shale retort is formed in a subterranean formation containing oil shale and having a substantially vertically extending first cleavage plane set and a substantially vertically extending second cleavage plane set intersecting the first set. The dispersion of the individual cleavage planes in the first and second cleavage plane sets is determined. The in situ retort is formed by excavating a vertical slot-shaped void within the boundaries of the retort site, leaving a remaining portion of the unfragmented formation within the retort site which is to be explosively expanded toward the slot. The unfragmented formation adjacent the slot has a pair of longer vertical free faces substantially aligned with the cleavage plane set having the lower dispersion. A pair of shorter vertical side walls of the slot can extend substantially perpendicular to the cleavage plane set having the lower dispersion. Explosive placed in such remaining formation adjacent the slot is detonated to fracture formation along cleavage planes in the first and second cleavage plane sets and to expand such remaining formation within the retort site toward the slot, forming a fragmented permeable mass of formation particles containing oil shale within the retort site.

REFERENCES:
patent: 4043596 (1977-08-01), Ridley
Agapito, Pillar Design in Competent Bedded Formations, Thesis for Colorado School of Mines, 1972.
Sellers et al., Rock Mechanics Research on Oil Shale Mining, presented at AIME Annual Meeting, 1971.
W. S. Boulton, Practical Coal Mining, Grehsam Pub. Co., London (1908) vol. 1, pp. 10-14; vol. 2 pp. 304-312.
T. H. Cockin, Coal Mining, Lockwood & Son, Ludgate Hill, England, (1904) pp. 148-150 and 160-162.
Daniel Burns, The Elements of Coal Mining, Edward Arnold Pub., London (1917) p. 72.
Mining Engineer's Hndbk., Peele, ed., 3rd ed. vol. 1, pp. 477,478, 1959 John Willey & Sons, N.Y.

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