![]()
ABSTRACT This paper describes the world's shale oil resources; introduces the available oil shale retorting technologies including the lump oil shale retorting and particulate oil shale retorting. And this paper also gives the forecast of shale oil production.
INTRODUCTION Due to the high crude oil price, the oil shale retorting for producing shale oil have being paid much attention. It is recognized that the world's proven shale oil reserves are higher than the crude oil exploitable resources. Now in the world, there are three countries produce shale oil commercially: China, Estonia and Brazil. China uses Fushun type retorting, Estonia uses Galoter and Kiviter retorting, Brazil uses Petrosix retorting. Total annual production of shale oil in the world accounts no more than one million tons currently. It is predicted that till 2015, it may reach 3.5 million tons.
WORLD's SHALE OIL RESERVES Based on the data, published by Dr. Dyni(2003), and modified by Jialin Qian(2008), the world. in place shale oil,(converted from the in-situ oil shale) accounts for about 400 billion tons, this resources are higher than that of crude oil(more than 300 billion tons). Among the top ten countries, United States ranks first with highest reserves of in place shale oil(300billion tons), the rest nine countries with the decreasing order are as follows: Russia(39billion tons), Zaire(14billion tons), Brazil(12billion tons), Jordan(5.2billion tons), Morocco(5 billion tons), Australia(4.5billion tons), China(2.7billion tons), Estonia(2.5billion tons), and Italia(1.4billion tons) (Dyni,2003;Qian,2008).It should be mentioned that the above figures may not be so accurate, due to the fact that some countries have no proven figures, but only estimated resources. And for some countries such as United States, Russia, Brazil, Jordan, Australia, Estonia and China, the above figures represent their proven reserves. Besides, China's oil shale resources are estimated more than several hundred.
Site News