Iran gains know-how to extract shale oil from reservoirs

Iranian researchers managed to get access to a technology extracting shale oil from reservoirs.

News ID: 5636

Date: 23 December 2024 - 17:40

TABNAK, Dec 23: For the first time in Iran, a research project has been done jointly by researchers from the Technical Faculties Campus of Tehran University and Exploration Department of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), which designed a technology for extracting shale oil from reserves using toxic coke technology at the laboratory and semi-industrial scales.

This technological initiative was led by Ali Shekarifard, an Associate Professor at the Technical Faculties Campus of Tehran University, in collaboration with Estonia’s Tallinn University of Technology, aimed to conduct specialized studies for the exploration and evaluation of the exploitability of oil shales in Ghalikouh, located in the western Lorestan province.

According to Shekarifard, this research has laid the groundwork for establishing a new oil shale industry in Iran by acquiring essential technical knowledge.

Iran found shale oil reserves of two billion barrels of light crude in its western Lorestan province in February 2017.

Shale oil is an unconventional oil produced from oil shale rock fragments by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. These processes convert the organic matter within the rock (kerogen) into synthetic oil and gas. The resulting oil can be used immediately as a fuel or upgraded to meet refinery feedstock specifications by adding hydrogen and removing impurities such as sulfur and nitrogen. The refined products can be used for the same purposes as those derived from crude oil.