H-COAL PROCESS:SLURRY OIL SYSTEM 
 
We have submitted earlier reports on the development of the "H-Coal" coal liquefaction process, which was developed and refined, with contracted US Government support, at several sites around the nation, by several corporate and institutional contractors.
 
One of the contractors involved was Hydrocarbon Research, Incorporated, or, "HRI".
 
HRI are well-represented in the available Coal liquefaction literature, but we have cited them only sparingly in the course of our reportage, since we have been unable to find out much of anything substantive about them.
 

United States Patent: 4060478
 
In earlier reports, we have documented that still-carbonaceous residues left by some primary Coal conversion technologies could themselves be further processed, to yield even more hydrocarbon values.
 
For instance, residues from the indirect conversion of Coal, via gasification, at the US Government's "COED" project in New Jersey, operated for the Government by FMC Corporation, were sent to Spain for further direct liquefaction with a Hydrogen donor solvent.
 
Just yesterday, we posted information on Consolidation Coal Company's 1975 US Patent 3,920,418, wherein residues from a solvent-based direct Coal liquefaction process are gasified to yield more hydrocarbons.
 

CYCLIC PROCESS FOR CONVERTING COAL INTO LIQUID PRODUCTS BY USE OF FIXED CATALYTIC BEDS - Patent 3514394
 
We continue to hack our way through the dense swamp of Coal liquefaction technologies developed by Esso/Exxon, with this submission, the first of two from the year 1970.
 
Our excerpts will be brief, since much of the disclosed technology is redundant, relative to other of our reports; it is almost repetitive, in fact, even though our take was that patents should be issued for genuinely "novel" developments.
 

United States Patent: 3920418
 
If you recall our earlier reports of FMC Corporation's development, under contract with the US Government, of the "COED" Coal conversion process, at a pilot plant in New Jersey, they first gasified Coal in that facility, to obtain raw materials for conversion into hydrocarbons, then shipped the still-carbonaceous gasification residues to Spain for further conversion by a direct liquefaction, or solvent extraction, process; wherein an hydrogenated Coal oil, and/or an Hydrogen donor solvent - which we surmised from the reports to be similar to, or the same as, that specified by WVU in their West Virginia Process for direct Coal liquefaction - was used to dissolve the carbon remaining in the residues and generate more hydrocarbon liquids.
 
Further, we remind you of our dispatch of yesterday, another in our long series concerning Consolidation Coal Company, wherein they were seen to have developed a "first stage" solvent extraction process for the direct liquefaction of raw Coal, similar, according to our perceptions, to the above-mentioned Spanish process for treatment of Coal gasification residues.