Oil shale is an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced, called shale oil. Shale oil is a substitute for conventional crude oil; however, extracting shale oil is costlier than the production of conventional crude oil both financially and in terms of its environmental impact. Deposits of oil shale occur around the world, including major deposits in the United States. A 2016 estimate of global deposits set the total world resources of oil shale equivalent of 6.05 trillion barrels of oil in place.
Carl Friedrich Schmidt was a Baltic German geologist and botanist in the Russian Empire. He is acknowledged as the founder of Estonian geology. In the mid-19th century, he researched Estonian oil shale, kukersite, and named it as kuckers.
Viru Keemia Grupp (VKG) is an Estonian holding group of oil shale industry, power generation, and public utility companies.
Friedrich Karl Akel was an Estonian diplomat and politician, a member of the International Olympic Committee, and Head of State of Estonia in 1924.
Paul Ariste was an Estonian linguist renowned for his studies of the Finno-Ugric languages, Yiddish and Baltic Romani language.
The oil shale industry is an industry of mining and processing of oil shale—a fine-grained sedimentary rock, containing significant amounts of kerogen, from which liquid hydrocarbons can be manufactured. The industry has developed in Brazil, China, Estonia and to some extent in Germany and Russia. Several other countries are currently conducting research on their oil shale reserves and production methods to improve efficiency and recovery. Estonia accounted for about 70% of the world's oil shale production in a study published in 2005.
The history of the oil shale industry started in ancient times. The modern industrial use of oil shale for oil extraction dates to the mid-19th century and started growing just before World War I because of the mass production of automobiles and trucks and the supposed shortage of gasoline for transportation needs. Between the World Wars oil shale projects were begun in several countries.
Oil shale gas is a synthetic non-condensable gas mixture (syngas) produced by oil shale thermal processing (pyrolysis). Although often referred to as shale gas, it differs from the natural gas produced from shale, which is also known as shale gas.
Kukersite is a light-brown marine type oil shale of Ordovician age. It is found in the Baltic Oil Shale Basin in Estonia and North-West Russia. It is of the lowest Upper Ordovician formation, formed some 460 million years ago. It was named after the German name of the Kukruse Manor in the north-east of Estonia by the Russian paleobotanist Mikhail Zalessky in 1917. Some minor kukersite resources occur in sedimentary basins of Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Oklahoma in North America and in Amadeus and Canning basins Australia.
There are two kinds of oil shale in Estonia, both of which are sedimentary rocks laid down during the Ordovician geologic period. Graptolitic argillite is the larger oil shale resource, but, because its organic matter content is relatively low, it is not used industrially. The other is kukersite, which has been mined for more than a hundred years. Kukersite deposits in Estonia account for 1.1% of global oil shale deposits.
The Galoter process is a shale oil extraction technology for a production of shale oil, a type of synthetic crude oil. In this process, the oil shale is decomposed into shale oil, oil shale gas, and spent residue. A decomposition is caused by mixing raw oil shale with a hot oil shale ash, generated by combustion of carbonaceous residue (semi-coke) in the spent residue. The process was developed in 1950s and it is used commercially for the shale oil production in Estonia. There are projects for further development of this technology and for expansion of its usage, e.g. in Jordan and USA.
Oil Shale is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering research in petrology, especially concerning oil shale. The journal covers geology, mining, formation, composition, methods of processing, combustion, economics, and environmental protection related to oil shale. It is abstracted and indexed in the Science Citation Index. The editor-in-chief is Andres Siirde and executive editor is Meelika Nõmme.
Lauri Vahtre is an Estonian politician, historian, translator and writer.
NPM Silmet AS is a rare-earth processor located in Sillamäe, Estonia. It is a subsidiary of Neo Performance Materials.
Ahtme Power Plant was an oil shale-fired power plant in Ahtme, Kohtla-Järve, Estonia. It was owned by VKG Soojus, a subsidiary of Viru Keemia Grupp. Until the end 2012, it supplied with heat Ahtme district of Kohtla-Järve and Jõhvi.
The Kohtla-Järve Power Plant is an oil shale-fired power plant in Kohtla-Järve, Estonia, about 15 km to north-west of the Ahtme Power Plant. It is owned by VKG Soojus, a subsidiary of Viru Keemia Grupp. It consists of Põhja Power Plant and Lõuna Power Plant.
Mikhail Dmitrievich Zalessky was a Russian paleontologist and paleobotanist. His main focus was an investigation of plant remains in coals and oil shales.
Operation Desert was a German synthetic fuel project during World War II. It attempted to build a shale oil industrial production complex for utilization of Swabian Alb oil shale deposits.
Esimene Eesti Põlevkivitööstus was an oil shale company located in Kohtla-Järve, Estonia. It was a predecessor of Viru Keemia Grupp, a shale oil extraction company.
Nikolay Pogrebov, was a Russian and Soviet hydrogeologist and an engineering geologist. In 1884–1887, he studied in and was graduated from the Saint Petersburg Mining Institute. In 1897–1919 he worked as the librarian and archivist of the Saint Petersburg Geology Committee. He was a professor at Leningrad Mining Institute from 1931 to 1936.
