QEM Limited announced vanadium and oil extraction results from the first test run of the company's pilot plant test program. After successfully commissioning the vanadium and oil shale bench-scale pilot plant at the Melbourne headquarters of HRL Technology Group Pty Ltd. ("HRL"), the first test run was conducted with six kilograms of oil shale feed mixed with a hydrogen donor solvent. Testing focussed on samples taken from two separate locations within the oil shale resource.

A 3kg sample from each of the upper and lower bands (OSU & OSL) were provided by QEM from previously reported drill holes QEM2019 and QEM2020. Samples were milled to a nominal top size of 2.36mm to facilitate subsequent chemical analysis and feed to oil extraction testing. The solvent extraction testing involved heating a slurry of oil shale and solvent in a batch autoclave at high pressure and a temperature typically in the range of 400°C to 450°C. Under these supercritical conditions the kerogen in the shale is converted to liquid and gaseous products.

The solvent acts as a hydrogen donor solvent which assists the kerogen conversion. The oil yield from solvent extraction tests is impacted by a range of factors including temperature, residence time, particle size, feed material properties, solids loading and solids /solvent ratio. The intention for the solvent extraction test was to demonstrate the effectiveness of solvent extraction for QEM's oil shale rather than optimising the different test conditions.