Customers Benefit from Metso Minerals’ Research and Test Center
An Australian company was able to obtain fast results for a difficult processing
problem at Metso Minerals’ unique crushing and screening test facility


Metso Minerals’ test facility includes an HP 100 cone crusher, an NP1007 impactor, a C80 jaw crusher,
a Barmac B3000 Duopactor and a GP200S cone crusher, all of which are standard production models.
The full-scale plant allows Metso to test specific circuit designs for individual customer requirements.
Queensland Energy Resources Ltd. (QERL), based in Queensland, Australia, is an energy development firm that has set out to do what no other company has done—develop a commercial-scale oil shale production facility.

Oil shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock that contains oil in the form of a chemical compound called kerogen. A thermal process, commonly known as “retorting,” is used to extract this compound from the shale. During retorting, the shale is heated to 500°C where the kerogen forms hydrocarbon vapor, which is then condensed into oil.

QERL has rights to around 15 billion barrels of oil in situ along the Queensland coast. Australia has shale oil reserves in Queensland estimated as high as 30 billion barrels. Southern Pacific Petroleum (SPP) tried to develop the resource (formerly known as the Stuart project), but several issues brought the project to a standstill. QERL purchased the shale oil interests from SPP in 2004.

The challenge is, unlike traditional oil refineries, shale oil production facilities are not off-the-shelf solutions. In fact, while there are a number of demonstration facilities around the world, there are no large commercial-scale facilities in existence.

So, as a first step, QERL must investigate each piece of equipment needed in this unique process and evaluate it for its applicability and efficiency in a commercial production setting.

“A key part of extracting oil from the shale is crushing and screening,” said Chris Anderson, principal mechanical engineer for QERL. “In order to extract the maximum amount of oil from the shale, the material must be crushed to certain specifications—cubic particles, good size distribution and minimal fines,” he explained.

QERL had tested a sizer type crusher, but wanted to try other approaches. Highperformance cone crushers are often used in aggregate applications to produce cubic particles for certain asphalt mixes. QERL thought these cone crushers might be another viable option and wanted to test them.


The fully automated Metso facility allows engineers to quickly change parameters during the course of a test.
Testing Challenge
The problem that most companies face when trying out crushing equipment for a new process technology is the enormous time and resource commitment needed to complete the test of equipment with the actual material to be processed. Typically, when a crusher is brought on site, electrical power must be installed and a qualified operator has to be located. Then, after running the test, the finished material has to be taken off-site for analysis. If variables for the operation of the crusher need to be changed, these changes could take several hours or even days to reconfigure. And, trying a different type of crusher could take weeks or even months.

So, rather than invest these resources of time and money, QERL shipped 18 tons of material comprising three different types of its oil shale to Metso Minerals’ unique crushing and screening test facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

Here, in a very short time, QERL was able to run nearly three dozen tests with different settings and configurations—a process that would have taken months using traditional methods.

One of a Kind
Metso says its Minerals Research and Test Center is the only one of its kind in the world. The fully automated 30,000- ft2 indoor facility is configured for lab testing and full-scale pilot testing of the company’s cone crushers, horizontal shaft impactors, and jaw crushers. At the test center, customers can test their own material on an HP 100 Cone Crusher, an NP1007 impactor, a C80 jaw crusher, a Barmac B3000 Duopactor, and a GP200S cone crusher, all of which are typical production machines.

The full-scale crushing plant allows for a customized circuit design for each individual customer. Data on product distribution, tonnage and power requirements can be collected for the customer’s specific ore or rock. In addition, material can be removed from the process stream at any stage and stored on-site for additional testing at a later time. This allows preparation of large batches of material that can be split for multiple secondary and tertiary crushing configurations.

The test center also is fully automated. This allows test engineers to quickly change parameters during the course of a test. “When you want to change a setting or speed, you just type it into the control system and the circuit reconfigures itself automatically,” said Scot Szalanski, manager, large cone product support, Metso Minerals mining group.

Five webcams positioned throughout the facility monitor the pilot test lines and broadcast results to a secure Web site. Customers who are unable to travel to the test center can view the tests on-line in real time.

“Our goal with the webcams is to incorporate digital recording so we can provide the customer a DVD of their test as well,” Szalanski said.

New to the test center is Metso-developed technology called OCS Vision Module, or VisioRock. This monitoring and measurement system uses light and a sophisticated camera to measure accurately and instantaneously the shape and size of particles produced. With this system, it is no longer necessary to stop the test and remove material for off-line analysis—and customers can receive data about their tests very quickly.


Customers may either observe testing activity on site, or if unable to travel,
at a remote, secure Web site that provides real-time monitoring and results.
With nearly 40 years of experience helping customers find the best mineral processing solution, Metso knows the importance of viewing crushing and screening operations as a complete process.

“The test center helps us work with customers to develop systems that improve overall efficiency of crushing and screening operations,” Szalanski said. “And we hope to help QERL with its unique crushing and screening process as well.”

Fast Results
Over the course of three days, QERL was able to gather information that would have been difficult to collect using more traditional test methods. “While we still need to analyze the scientific data, we were able to achieve visual results very, very quickly in the test facility,” Anderson said.