SLE and CLG to jointly develop oil shale technology

Irish oil and gas exploration company San Leon Energy (SLE) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Chevron Lummus Global (CLG) to cooperate in upgrading existing oil shale technology.

The companies aim to produce synthetic crude oil from the raw shale oil to be produced in SLE’s Timahdit oil shale license area in Morocco. A plant will be designed and delivered in the area in cooperation with Enefit Outotec Technology (EOT). According to SLE, the plant will be built using the latest ‘Enefit280’ process.

CLG, which will propose a design for an oil shale upgrading unit to produce quality synthetic crude oil, has already licensed its hydrocracking technology to the Samir Refinery in Mohammedia, Morocco. The crude oil in turn will be refined locally.

Under the initial EOT study, the plant will have three ‘Enefit 280’ units and will be designed with the ability to increase capacity in order to exploit the estimated 600 million barrels of shale oil resources within the Timahdit License area.

SLE is conducting a core drilling operation to extract samples from the Timahdit oil shale deposit for the purpose of testing at the Enefit Bench Scale plant located at EOT’s R&D centre in Frankfurt, Germany.

The test results are expected to be available in the second quarter of 2014, and an updated feasibility study for the Timahdit Oil Shale project is scheduled for completion by the end of 2014.

San Leon Energy executive chairman Oisin Fanning said: "Our continued cooperation with our existing partners, ONHYM in Morocco, along with Enefit and now CLG, brings further credibility to San Leon’s commitment to commercially develop oil shale in Morocco."