Iran Acquires Shale Oil Production Technology
The shale oil pilot project in Iran is in its final stages and the country can be said to have access to the technology to extract oil from such reserves.
The pilot shale oil pilot project in Iran was designed to study the technical and economic aspects of the shale oil exploration process and demonstrate the feasibility of exploiting unconventional reservoirs at laboratory scale.
National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) handed over the project to Tehran University Engineering Campus in collaboration with Tallinn University of Estonia in 2010 and the project has now reached its final stage.
Determining the thermal, geochemical characteristics and oil production rate of shale reserves, determining the qualitative and physico-chemical characteristics of oil produced from shale reserves, providing the most effective technology for achieving maximum oil recovery from shale reserves, assessing the oil production of the Galikukh shale reserve in the western province of Lorestan, providing the most effective mechanisms and technologies to produce shale oil of the highest quality, the design and construction of the first laboratory for the exploration production of shale oil in Iran, as well as the creation and implementation of the necessary technology to realize the commercial phase of shale oil reserves in Halikukh is considered the main goal of the mentioned project.
In February 2017, Iran discovered shale oil reserves amounting to two billion barrels of light oil in its western Lorestan province.
“Based on studies, it is estimated that the Galikukh shale oil reserves in Lorestan amount to two billion barrels of oil,” Bahman Soleimani, former NIOC deputy director for exploration, told Tasnim news agency at the time.
