Page 193 - Synthetic Fuels Handbook

FUELS FROM OIL SHALE 179

Suncor of Canada has conducted limited exploration in the Lajjun area, southwest of
Amman. During 1999, the company was engaged in discussions on the possible develop-
ment of an oil shale extraction facility.
The eventual exploitation of the only substantial fossil fuel resource to produce liquid
fuels and/or electricity, together with chemicals and building materials, would be favored
by three factors: (a) the high organic-matter content of Jordanian oil shale, (b) the suitabil-
ity of the deposits for surface mining, and (c) their location near potential consumers (i.e.,
phosphate mines, potash, and cement works).

6.3.9 Morocco
Morocco has very substantial oil shale reserves but to date they have not been exploited.
During the early 1980s, Shell and the Moroccan state entity ONAREP conducted research
into the exploitation of the oil-shale reserves at Tarfaya, and an experimental shale-processing
plant was constructed at another major deposit (Timahdit). At the beginning of 1986, how-
ever, it was decided to postpone shale exploitation at both sites and to undertake a limited
program of laboratory and pilot-plant research.
Morocco quotes the proved amount of oil shale in place as 12.3 billion metric tons, with
proved recoverable reserves of shale oil amounting to 3.42 billion barrels (equivalent to
approximately 500 million metric tons).

6.3.10 Russian Federation
There are oil shale deposits in Leningrad Oblast, across the border from those in Estonia.
Annual output is estimated to be about 2 million metric tons, most of which is exported to
the Baltic power station in Narva, Estonia. In 1999, Estonia imported 1.4 million metric
tons of Russian shale but is aiming to reduce the amount involved, or eliminate the trade
entirely. There is another oil-shale deposit near Syzran on the river Volga.
The exploitation of Volga Basin shale, which has a higher content of sulfur and ash,
began in the 1930s. Although the use of such shale as a power station fuel has been aban-
doned owing to environment pollution, a small processing plant may still be operating at
Syzran, with a throughput of less than 50,000 tonnes of shale per annum.

6.3.11 Thailand
Some exploratory drilling by the government was made as early as 1935 near Mae Sot in
Tak Province on the Thai-Burmese border. The oil-shale beds are relatively thin and the
structure of the deposit is complicated by folding and faulting.
Some 18.7 billion metric tons of oil shale have been identified in Tak Province but to
date it has not been economic to exploit the deposits. Proved recoverable reserves of shale
oil are put at 810 million metric tons.

6.3.12 United States
It is estimated that nearly 62 percent of the world’s potentially recoverable oil shale
resources are concentrated in the United States. The largest of the deposits is found in the
2
42,700 km Eocene Green River Formation in northwestern Colorado, northeastern Utah,
and southwestern Wyoming. The richest and most easily recoverable deposits are located