The aim of this project was to investigate the production of a slurry fuel made from a mixture of oil and finely-ground biomass. The types of oil investigated were diesel and kerosene. Biomass was represented by radiata pine (Pinus radiata). The wood was prepared with the Convertech process, which is being developed to continuously wash, autohydrolyse and dry wood chips. Finely-ground wood particles settle in fuels such as diesel or kerosene due to their greater density and, thus, need to be stabilized if long-term storage is desired. It was found that autohydrolysed wood particles can be prevented from settling by emulsifying the oil-particle mixture with a polar liquid. In this context, it was discovered that certain mixtures of kerosene, ethanol, water and wood form a stable emulsion without any additives (stable for more than 30 days). Various additives for the stabilization of pure wood powder-oil mixtures were also tested. Whereas no suitable additive of the surfactant type could be identified, a castor oil-based thickener was found to successfully stabilize the slurry. The apparent Viscosities of some of the slurries that were stable for at least 30 days were also measured. All slurries showed pseudoplastic properties. The thickener stabilized slurry was found to have the lowest viscosity at shear rates above 50 s(-1). (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.