Crude Oil In Coal Seams.

[John]

I know we touched on this subject a while back and I now think a thread is called for.
I was doing some searching yesterday and found my old pit had oil seepage from a small fault just south of the shafts in the piper seam.
So not as uncommon as I once thought.

[Wheldale]

I remember reading that Bevercoates had a oil seepage problem. This was from the Bothamsall oilfield. I seem to remember that I read a leaflet about the pit and it said they collected the oil and sold it! 20,000 rings a bell, not sure if it was gallons a year of they made 20 grand a year from it.

[dazbt]

Mar 5, 2010 9:25:06 GMT -5 John said:

I know we touched on this subject a while back and I now think a thread is called for.
I was doing some searching yesterday and found my old pit had oil seepage from a small fault just south of the shafts in the piper seam.
So not as uncommon as I once thought.

snippet;
"It was said to be Sir Winston Churchill's greatest secret, in fact before the discovery of oil in Dukes Wood, near the Nottinghsmshire village of Eakring, it was said to be "one of" his greatest worries. Oil became the life blood of the second world war and without it Britain would soon become defenceless. As war time Britain's oil demand soon began to exceed its supply coming mainly from America and the Middle East, oil tankers became easy targets for the U Boat wolfpacks attacking the allied convoys. If Britain was to survive an answer had to be found and every conceivable idea was considered, even alternative fuels, and eventually searching for oil under Britain's soil became a possibility.

Britain's ally, america has the expertise to explore and drill for oil, and so with great secrecy, the Darcy Oil Company was contacted and plans made to bring American oil men and equipment across the North Atlantic and bring on production from potential locations. The impetus for exploring for oil at Dukes Wood may have come from the fact that at the nearby Bilsthorpe colliery, oil seeps were common in the coal mine. The pit was situated down dip of the "Eakring anticline" and the drilling at the Dukes Wood site penetrated the structure higher up dip, with 215 oil wells producing 4 million barrels of oil, which was crucial to the war effort.

Due to its strategic importance to relieving the pressure for oil supplies on the convoys, drilling operations were carried out under great secrecy and teh crude oil produced from Dukes Wood and Eakring oil fileds was loaded via the colliery rail sidings at Blisthorpe and exported to Pumpherson refinery near Edinburgh.

The Uk oil industry expanded operations posr war in the East Midlands area, and became a proving ground for many future senior BP management (including Dave Harding - who the North Sea Harding field is named after) and for technologies now commonly used in the industry - Sir Frank Whittle field trialled the turbo drill on the East Midlans oilfields in the 1950s and early 1960s. Some of those who gained early expereience went on to work overseas for Anglo Iranian as Middle East reserves were accessed and brought into production. their knowledge and experience was sought again in the 1960s as the UK's search for hydrocarbons moved offshore.

These early pioneers of the indutsry were known as the "Mansfield Mafia"."

[John]

Mar 5, 2010 14:28:42 GMT -5 Wheldale said:

I remember reading that Bevercoates had a oil seepage problem. This was from the Bothamsall oilfield. I seem to remember that I read a leaflet about the pit and it said they collected the oil and sold it! 20,000 rings a bell, not sure if it was gallons a year of they made 20 grand a year from it.

No idea where the oil came from at Bevercotes, I do know it was pretty bad on some faces though. My information was from an ex mine official who worked at Bevercotes.
He told me they had a drum full of soft soap at the gate ends so the blokes could clean up prior to leaving the districts at the end of the shift.
Crude oil and heat were the two worst things down Bevercotes, so he told me.

Daz, I wonder why the powers that be didn't do what the Germans were doing?? Turning coal into oil products, their war machine ran on coal produced diesel and petrol products.

[Wheldale]

I believe in WW2 a squadron of Spitfires were run on petrol made from coal. There was a trial plant at Point of Ayr Colliery until the pit shut. I dont know why the UK didnt do it on a larger scale like South Africa.

[dazbt]

"Daz, I wonder why the powers that be didn't do what the Germans were doing?? Turning coal into oil products, their war machine ran on coal produced diesel and petrol products."

I've no real idea why the UK didn't go into large scale 'oil from coal' but perhaps it was because they could always rely on 'incoming oil' sources, obviously not quite so reliable during the World Wars but what got through was obviously considered enough and not worth the effort of massive coal liquifaction processing. It certainly wasn't because Britain didn't have the technology because Newton Chambers were extracting light oils and diesel as a by-product of their coking and chemical processing pre 1900, and later, in the very early 1900s the company producing Coalite were also gleaning diesel and petrol amongst numerous other useful by-products.
I note that China are 'off and on' with their numerous and potentially massive coal liquifaction plans, which include joint ventures with SASOL and some USA companies, might well that China need most of their coal production for direct energy but it seems odd that the US hasn't chased up on their own coal to oil conversion proposals.

[John]

Mar 6, 2010 6:42:34 GMT -5 dazbt said:

"Daz, I wonder why the powers that be didn't do what the Germans were doing?? Turning coal into oil products, their war machine ran on coal produced diesel and petrol products."

I've no real idea why the UK didn't go into large scale 'oil from coal' but perhaps it was because they could always rely on 'incoming oil' sources, obviously not quite so reliable during the World Wars but what got through was obviously considered enough and not worth the effort of massive coal liquifaction processing. It certainly wasn't because Britain didn't have the technology because Newton Chambers were extracting light oils and diesel as a by-product of their coking and chemical processing pre 1900, and later, in the very early 1900s the company producing Coalite were also gleaning diesel and petrol amongst numerous other useful by-products.
I note that China are 'off and on' with their numerous and potentially massive coal liquifaction plans, which include joint ventures with SASOL and some USA companies, might well that China need most of their coal production for direct energy but it seems odd that the US hasn't chased up on their own coal to oil conversion proposals.

I found many articles about China's inroads into coal to oil a couple of days back.
I'd imagine during the days of all those town gas works, a lot of the byproducts of the tar recovered from gas works went to the refineries Daz. That's what didn't escape into the ground!!

[dazbt]

Mar 6, 2010 7:51:21 GMT -5 John said:

Mar 6, 2010 6:42:34 GMT -5 dazbt said:

"Daz, I wonder why the powers that be didn't do what the Germans were doing?? Turning coal into oil products, their war machine ran on coal produced diesel and petrol products."

I've no real idea why the UK didn't go into large scale 'oil from coal' but perhaps it was because they could always rely on 'incoming oil' sources, obviously not quite so reliable during the World Wars but what got through was obviously considered enough and not worth the effort of massive coal liquifaction processing. It certainly wasn't because Britain didn't have the technology because Newton Chambers were extracting light oils and diesel as a by-product of their coking and chemical processing pre 1900, and later, in the very early 1900s the company producing Coalite were also gleaning diesel and petrol amongst numerous other useful by-products.
I note that China are 'off and on' with their numerous and potentially massive coal liquifaction plans, which include joint ventures with SASOL and some USA companies, might well that China need most of their coal production for direct energy but it seems odd that the US hasn't chased up on their own coal to oil conversion proposals.

I found many articles about China's inroads into coal to oil a couple of days back.
I'd imagine during the days of all those town gas works, a lot of the byproducts of the tar recovered from gas works went to the refineries Daz. That's what didn't escape into the ground!!

This just might be the turning point ........ or at least an indication,

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703954904575109680657477358.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

"Sasol Ltd., the world's largest producer of motor fuels made from coal, is at risk of being squeezed out of a potential multibillion-dollar project in China as the government reviews a competing homegrown technology.
The Johannesburg-based petrochemical concern submitted a plan in December for a 90,000-barrel-a-day coal-to-liquids plant. However, according to a Chinese government document, viewed by Dow Jones Newswires, the review of the coal-to-liquids project has been delayed as regulators await a rival plan based on local technology.
The document, prepared by the local-level economic planning agency of the Ningxia Autonomous Region, where Sasol's planned project would be built, ..."

[John]

I wonder how much Chinese technology is "borrowed" Daz. ;D

[dazbt]

Mar 8, 2010 21:46:31 GMT -5 John said:

I wonder how much Chinese technology is "borrowed" Daz. ;D

A lot ..................... probably not quite as much as we borrowed from them over the centuries mind !!
There was a great deal of technology transfer deals between Anderson and China, the classic being the manufacture of AM 500s .......... but, whilst I was there I saw copies of AB 16 machine castings, which weren't under licence.
Quite a few 'hints' of major International collaboration deals that were initiated and then reneged on, a steel works under construction with Japanese partial funding and technology was brought to a sudden stop around 1980 and 'bitter negotiations' were ongoing during one trip I made, a deal will Shell was also broken up after the initial agreement, I don't know the details of either, but recent developments with foreign companies seen to shadow the bits of info. I picked up at the time.
"Sell us the seeds and we will grow our own"

[John]

Their shearer looks like a modified AB16 only in a yellow "livery".
Jeeze, if I was working under a canopy of Chinese chock shields, I hope they'd be better made than most of their crappy goods.
I wonder if their own army boots fall to pieces after a good march, or their military electronics fail after just a few hours like their VCR/DVD players do?? ;D ;D
I can just imagine some Chinese gunnery/missile officer shoutting "Fire"!, "fire I said"!! "Bloody fire them friggin rockets before one of you gets the rocket" Errrrr Sir, the firing buttons fell to pieces"!

[philipford]

During the 1970s Bold Colliery in Lancashire had a problem with crude oil coming into one of there seams. There was large quantitys and it became nessesary to pump it out. A market could not be found for it so they pumped it into the then disused Ravenhead No 10 & 11 pits in St Helens.

[John]

What a waste!

[bulwellbrian]

The NCB had oilbores geophysically logged to gain some idea of the thickness of coal seams. This I think happened at Eakring and Dukes Wood, proberbly others. The BGS would know.

[ervank]

i am a new member in this forum.
I just want to share an oil seepage in my coal mine
I working as pit geologist in Kaltim Prima Coal, one of largest coal mine in the world in Indonesia. In one pit, crude oil came out from sandstone layer overlay above 3 m coal seam, and when drillblast made a hole, a mixed between gas and crude oil come out from the hole. The gas pressure is very strong. Activity of coal mining has to be shutdown temporary

I am very thankful if someone can share how to deal with this condition

[John]

To be perfectly honest, I don't think we have any professional mining engineers or geologists as members, most on this site are tradesmen, ex miners, a few ex coal mine officials and many lay members just interested in mining history.
We can hope there are some professional mining engineers reading the posts, but I really think you'd be better off doing a search in your favorite search engine for a professional site.

[boaz]

I believe Hargreaves Maltby Colliery are experiencing some outbursts at present

[ivanb]

Thee first mainland oil WELL was at Hardstoft, Tibshelf, Derbyshire where drilling commenced in 1917. The well entered production first producing oil under natural pressure on 25th MAY 1919 from a depth of 3.000ft. The well closed in the mid 1950's. Initially the oil was sent to Scotland to be refined (by rail) later used on the Duke Of Devonshires estate at Hardwick.
The discovery of crude oil in the UK pre-dates that and was first reported in the Riddings Colliery of James Oakes & Co. It was not recognised as being of any value for was disposed of as waste into the nearby Pinxton canal until people discovered they could set the canal on blaze as the oil burnt. Oakes brought into scientists to investigate as a result of which it was discovered it could be used to create paraffin (for lighting lamps0 and paraffin wax candles which proved superior to tallow.
Full details about the Riddings discovery can be founnd on the Somercotes Local History Society webpage whilst the full story of the Tibshelf oilwell will soon be on the Tibshelf Local History Society Webpage under construction. If anybody is really interested in details about the Tibshelf well John, I can post them as I did the original research work in 2008 and have specific production figures, analysis etc.

[John]

I might just add, the potash seam in North Yorkshire was found by Darcy Drilling prospecting for oil. But technology wasn't available back then to sink shafts down to that depth and potash prices weren't high enough to even contemplate the effort.