Oil shale, an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock, contains significant amounts of kerogen from which liquid hydrocarbons can be extracted. Kerogen requires more processing to use than crude oil, which increases its cost as a crude-oil substitute both financially and in terms of its environmental impact. Deposits of oil shale occur around the world, including major deposits in the United States of America. Estimates of global deposits range from 2.8 trillion to 3.3 trillion barrels (450 × 109 to 520 × 109 m3) of recoverable oil.
About half of this immense total is to be found near the common borders of Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado, where much of the resource occurs at a saturation of more than 25 gallons of product per ton of ore (about 10% by weight) in beds that are 30 m to 300 m thick. Like heavy oil reservoirs, oil shale is found near the surface, ranging from outcrops down to about 1,000 m.
Oil shale has gained attention as an energy resource as the price of conventional sources of petroleum has risen and as a way for some areas to secure independence from external suppliers of energy.
The present methods available for shale oil extraction are inefficient and require high temperatures. Also the methodology in itself leaves behind a large residue which possesses environmental hazards.
As it has been proposed by various research agencies, there would be significant advances in the shale oil extraction as it promises to solve the oil problems of a number of countries. It is expected that by 2020, there would be improved methods of shale remediation, innovative surface retort architecture and pilot scale in situ conversion methods. It is also expected that by 2030, the world would be seeing the large scale production of shale oil.
The major reserves across the world are held by USA, Brazil, Congo, Jordan, Morocco, Russia, and Estonia amongst other countries. Presently, majority of the shale oil extracted all over the world is done in Estonia.
In Africa, major oil shale deposits are located in the Democratic Republic of Congo (equal to 14.31 billion metric tons of shale oil) and Morocco (12.3 billion metric tons or 8.16 billion metric tons of shale oil). There are also oil shale reserves in Egypt, South Africa, Madagascar, and Nigeria. The main deposits of Egypt are located in Safaga-Al-Qusair and Abu Tartour areas.
In Asia, major oil shale deposits are located in China, which has an estimated total of 32 billion metric tons, of which 4.4 billion metric tons are technically exploitable and economically feasible. Smaller reserves are found in Thailand, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Myanmar, Armenia, Mongolia, and India. Recent sources of shale oil have been found in Saudi Arabia.
In Europe, the major oil reserves are found in Russia, Italy, France, Estonia, Belarus, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.
In North America, USA and Canada hold the reserves in which USA is the world’s largest shale oil reserves.
In South America, Brazil (world’s second largest), Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela hold the reserves.
Recent events show the world oil corporations and even new players foraying into the race of own the shale reserves. Aramco, the Saudi organisation is looking forward to purchase or move into joint ventures for shale oil extraction. More closely, in India, Reliance Industries has already started investing in shale oil reserves.
So is the shale gas set to be the next big thing, replacing the crude oil and ending the monopoly of the middle east – answer to which lies only in time.
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