Agro Perspectiva

Russia comes into slate oil era

16.11.2012 09:14 "Agro Perspectiva" (Kyiv) — A forecast recently made by the International Energy Agency says that from the point of view of the amounts of produced oil, by 2020, the US may surpass the world’s current leaders in oil production - Russia and Saudi Arabia. The agency’s experts believe that the US may reach this by developing its deposits of slate oil, Voice of Russia says. However, other experts say that Russia has good chances not to lag behind the US in this sphere, because its deposits of slate oil are also vast. Experts say that in total, the world’s deposits of slate oil are several times larger than the already known deposits of natural oil. They also say that the world’s deposits of slate oil are large enough to cover the human race’s needs in oil within the next 300 years, if the level of consuming oil does not rise in comparison with the current one. Vast deposits of slate oil have been discovered not only in the US and Russia, but also in Australia, Brazil, China, Israel and in several countries of Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa. From the point of view of the cost of production, slate oil is much cheaper than natural oil. At present, in the US, slate oil costs no more than $ 20 to $ 30 a barrel, while natural oil - about $ 100 a barrel. «If Russia starts to develop its slate oil deposits, this may mean great prospects for its economy,» Russian expert in oil and gas Andrey Konoplyanik says. «Technologies that are needed for producing slate oil - both for extracting and for refining it - are new for Russia, and Russia will need some time to develop them. But these efforts will most likely pay back with great profit.» Russia has already launched its first project of developing one of its deposits of slate oil. Namely, it is a deposit called Bazhenovskaya Svita in western Siberia. The area of this deposit is approximately equal to those of Texas and the Gulf of Mexico put together. The deposits will be developed by joint efforts of the companies «Gazprom Neft» and «Shell». «However, this deposit has not been explored quite well yet,» Marsel Salikhov from the Russian Institute of Energy and Finances says. «Various experts estimate the amount of oil at this deposit very differently - from 10 mln to 100 mln tons,» Mr. Salikhov says. «However, even 10 mln tons is a very large amount.» «So far, the projects of „Gazprom Neft» and „Shell" concerning Bazhenovskaya Svita are limited to exploringit. Only after that, one may speak about exploitingit." However, although one may call it thinking too far ahead, the companies are planning to start extracting oil from Bazhenovskaya Svita somewhere around 2021. Other Russian companies are showing great interest in slate oil deposits as well. It is expected that the Russian government will introduce a number of privileges for developers of slate oil deposits already before the end of this year.