Canada 's MGX Minerals and partner Highbury Energy have begun research and development work on creating synthetic crude from oil shale byproduct petcoke . The aim is to manufacture a product which can be used in a traditional refinery without any damage to infrastructure , and develop a long - term use for petcoke . According to the Alberta Energy Commission , stockpiles of the material in 2006 were at 106 million tonnes . Specifically, the Province of Alberta is known to host vast stockpiles of Petcoke. MGX and Highbury have so far focused on extracting metals such as vanadium , nickel , and copper from petcoke , as well as hydrogen gas output .
Canada 's MGX Minerals and partner Highbury Energy have begun research and development work on creating synthetic crude from oil shale byproduct petcoke . The aim is to manufacture a product which can be used in a traditional refinery without any damage to infrastructure , and develop a long - term use for petcoke . According to the Alberta Energy Commission , stockpiles of the material in 2006 were at 106 million tonnes . MGX and Highbury have so far focused on extracting metals such as vanadium , nickel , and copper from petcoke , as well as hydrogen gas output .