New South Wales Shale and Oil Company

This arrangement was considerably more costly than if the retorts were at the mine and only crude oil or finished products needed to be dispatched by rail.

[6][7] The new company was incorporated by an act of the New South Wales Parliament on 10 February 1873,[8] and took over all existing operations at Hartley Vale and Waterloo.

[12] And, in 1876, at a location where the Main Western railway line was at its closest to Hartley Vale, a station and exchange siding of that name was opened.

[13] These developments, together with the prospect of also processing lower grades of shale, were favourable for a migration of retorting operations to the mining site at Hartley Vale.

[15] The company closed its retorts at Waterloo and, by early 1886, had relocated its kerosene refining operations to Hartley Vale, leasing these to A. M. Fell & Sons, an oil and grease manufacturer.

[16] The sophisticated new refining plant had been designed by Alexander Morrison Fell (1825–1890) — a leading figure in the early period of the Scottish shale oil industry, who after he had migrated to Australia, had been a works manager at Mount Kembla and Joadja[17] — and it was manufactured entirely in Sydney, by Mort's Dock & Engineering, G & C Hoskins, and other local companies.

[19] Under the terms of the settlement, the company paid A. M. Fell & Sons £4000 and their legal costs, and bought the stocks of products on hand at the time, but the commercial arrangements were ended.

Crude oil produced in the retorts was sold to the Australian Gas Light Co, for gas enrichment, under a ten year contract to supply 1,000,000 imperial gallons per annum, but was also railed to the company's existing shale oil refinery at Hartley Vale, for further processing by fractional distillation.

[22][23][24][25][26][27] In the 1888s and 1890s, the company had premises adjacent to the Darling Harbour railway line at Ultimo, where they manufactured grease and lubricating oil.