Oil Shale News

“Currently there are oil shale resources in some countries such as Venezuela, Canada and the United states whose extraction is costly,” National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Director for Explorations Mahmoud Mohaddes told the oil ministry’s website, Shana, adding the oil extracted from oil shale is heavier than what is known as heavy oil and could be extracted just through mining.

“Some countries lack huge oil and gas reserves therefore extraction of oil and gas from shale is economical for them but due to the existence of abundant oil and gas reserves in our country, extracting of oil and gas from shale is not much economical,” he added.

“Even though developing oil and gas shale deposits is costly, these days their extraction is economical due to high prices of oil but if oil prices fall development of these projects won’t be economical,” the official said.

Referring to the endorsement of a contract with the Oil Institute of Tehran University on studying oil shale deposits, Mohaddes said, “In Iran it is for the first time that a study is being conducted on shale oil and that is why we should try to use all scientific and academic potentials for conducting such studies.”

“By conducting a study on oil and gas shale, we plan to identify potential deposits in our country,” Mohaddes said.

He also reported of a study on identification of unconventional resources of gas hydrates, adding that the Oman Sea is the best location for identification of these reserves.

Earlier an official at the Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI) had announced that two appraisal wells have been drilled in the Sea of Oman which has raised the hope for discovering gas hydrate deposits in waters to the South of Iran’s Southeastern Sistan-Balouchestan province.