Jumping on the unconventional energy bandwagon, Serbia’s former state-owned oil and gas firm NIS, now owned by Russia’s Gazprom Neft, is interested in taking part in a tender to develop oil shale resources in the country’s Aleksinac Basin, the company said Wednesday, newswires reported.
Oil shale is different from shale oil, which is already widely produced globally. Oil shale remains a promising, yet expensive-to-produce resource that may eventually see more development. Serbia is thought to be rich in oil shale; government estimates suggest Serbia has 11 oil shale basins with total resources of 4.81bn tonnes, with up to 3.6bn tonnes of recoverable reserves.
Serbia plans to launch before the end of 2012 a tender to develop blocks in the Aleksinac Basin. “The exploitation of oil shale has the potential to increase Serbia’s energy independence,” NIS CEO Kirill Kravchenko said at a conference in Belgrade, according to an NIS statement.
NIS is also set to start drilling for shale gas in Hungary, and Kravchenko said his firm is well positioned to process the oil produced from shale in its existing refineries at Pancevo and Novi Sad.
“Oil transportation to other refineries or the construction of a new refinery would be very expensive, while using the existing refinery capacities in Pancevo and Novi Sad would save financial resources,” he said.
Source Balkans
