Oil shale potential in Serbia

Abstract

Basic geological exploration in Serbia detected 21 deposits of oil shale with resources of over 4.7 billion tonnes. Oil shale in these deposits is of various qualities and oil content. The biggest deposits of commercial potential are Aleksinac and Vina-Zubetin. Aleksinac deposit has been explored in more detail compared with other deposits, with reserves close to 2.0 billion tonnes with average content of organic matter of approximately 20% and with oil content of approximately 10%. Preliminary analyses and studies showed that oil shale can be mined both by surface and underground mining methods. Initial evaluation of Aleksinac oil shale indicates that basically it can be thermally processed using existing commercial oil shale processing technologies used in Estonia. The company Viru Keemia Grupp AS (VKG) from Estonia established the potential of Aleksinac deposit and showed preliminary interest in mining and processing of oil shale. For this reason VKG established collaboration with Faculty of Mining and Geology of University of Belgrade. Some of the results of this collaboration are presented in this paper. © 2009 Estonian Academy Publishers.