British Australian Oil Company

[8][5][9][10] By December 1906, it was seeking permission for the construction of a branch railway that would run along Elizabeth Street, Murrurundi, and was considering the means to bring the shale from Mount Temi over Page Mountain.

Fifty acres of land had been set aside for a settlement near the mine, and there were already four bark huts and a tent there for accommodating the miners.

For use in the process to produce the ammonia and for other purposes, water was drawn from Pages River, through a pipeline to a reservoir near the retorts.

[17] It was located west of Hamilton Junction, adjacent to the Newcastle gasworks,[25] and employed 100 men on its 20 acre site.

The company operated a mine close to the railway line south of Capertee—the Crown Ridge mine—from which oil shale was supplied for town gas enrichment.

[34] In April 1912, fifty tons of fuel oil was sold to the Royal Australian Navy to trial its suitability on the destroyer HMAS Parramatta.

[28] However, the company’s managing director visited Australia, in mid 1913, and provided a pessimistic report to shareholders of the shale reserves and future prospects.

[37] The company was to claim that it had been severely impacted by a strike of its workers at Mount Temi and Murrurundi, in February 1913, which had resulted in the retorts needing to be stopped and allowed to cool.

"[8] The company used the brand name "Radix" for its motor spirit, which was among the earliest petrol car engine fuel produced commercially in Australia.

[46][47] In November 1914, the debenture holders appointed a receiver, although the company’s management were insisting that this was only as a temporary measure, due to withdrawal of banking facilities in Australia.

The Australian Shale Oil Corporation Ltd. was formed in 1924, with the intention of using the capital raised in its float to exploit the Mt Temi resource, using the American-invented Bronder retorting process.

However, before significant work was done at Murrurundi, the company was approached by the Tasmanian Government seeking to interest it in exploiting oil shale deposits in Tasmania.

[11] At the site of the retorts, on land to the north of modern-day Doughboy Street, in 2015, there were ruins of some brick structures and the foundation of the terminal point of the aerial ropeway.