What is shale oil?

Stimulated the idea of ​​prosperity shale oil, OPEC, the most powerful organization in the world, Chen distress call, despite repeated news on countless media, without analysts over the past few weeks, the idea that the confrontation raging between the Arabs and the Senate shale oil to control the pace of supply Global oil for a couple of reasons for value, where the Saudi leaders seeking to keep pace pumping OPEC oil as a direct blow from Riyadh to Grimaha Djiossiasien chained, Russia and Iran, who are playing in support of the Syrian dictator, "Bashar al-Assad" In your neighborhood several machinations geostrategic region, which has become a blatant threat Saudi security than the competition posed to gain global market with American prospectors.

Saudi Arabia also cut down the price of oil, Russia and Iran are negatively affected, and some US officials declared that Saudi Arabia age service of the United States, while also losing a lot of American companies to explore for oil shale.

These paragraphs that contain a lot of economics, geography, political geography terms, often repeated in numerous newspaper articles and news agencies, without any scientific details of what is or how shale oil is extracted and production, this article is an introduction to it.

Many researchers and oil analyst believes that we have reached a point at which decreased the amount available from conventional oil all over the world, and this so-called peak oil, because oil is a resource that is renewed, a genuine limited supply, but this idea is not agreed upon by everyone, Some still believed that we are still far from reaching this peak a century or more, on the grounds that we are greatly rely on technology that operates petroleum products, the search began in earnest for unconventional crude oil sources, has been shown that there is one of the most promising reserves of oil that has not been commercially exploited yet, a shale oil, which is basically the oil that is found within the solid rock.
About a hundred million years ago, a wide swath of the sea the North American continent separated into East and West in two parts, with a lower sea levels, fell this marine segment, leaving sailors internal and pastures fertile, also led to the death of organisms that lived with them and turned into fossils fossilized, and after millions of years, resulting in exposure of these residues to high temperatures and pressure of gravity, to the transformation of the oil, but the circumstances that led to the creation of liquid petroleum in other parts of the world, were not available in this region, which led to the formation of shale oil (non-liquid ), which can be considered similar to crude oil, liquid at all stages of its formation, except for the last part, which turns it into a liquid, so it is up to the scientists of energy so that they can end the process.

Considers shale oil extraction process similar to the process of extracting the liquid oil, in the process of oil extraction of oil come to the surface as a result of pressure gases, after being alleviate this pressure, the second phase begins, and the third, which is more difficult in oil exploration, in some cases, is pumped water to ease the oil pressure, and in some other cases, the introduction of gas to re-pressure oil chamber, and in many cases, leaving the remaining oil to be extracted in the future when there are more advanced equipment, but the extraction of crude oil from the rock is more difficult, where you must exploration shale drilling underground or mined surface, as that after drilling, must be subjected shale oil distillation, and this process involves exposing the rock extracted to the pyrolysis process, any application severe the heat without the presence of oxygen, resulting in a chemical change, as it is between the temperature 650 and 700 ° F, kerogen - fossil fuel inside the rocks - gonorrhea begins and separated from the rock, and then can be refining that article resulting oil like to produce more synthetic crude oil, and is worth mentioning that the shale oil extraction process and treatment above the Earth's surface, called the distillation process surface.

The problem is that this process adds two steps additional conventional extraction process which liquid oil pump is simply the ground, in addition to mining, there is also a process of distillation and refining of kerogen to produce synthetic crude oil, and shale oil extraction poses also environmental challenges, as the production one barrel of oil shale liquid requires the use of two barrels of water, and without the development of technology for water treatment, water resulting from oil refining rock will increase ocean salinity; which will lead to poisoning the surrounding local areas, as there are other problem is the rocks, where Every barrel of oil produced from oil shale produces about 1.5 tons of rocks, and despite the fact that there are projects require the use of free rock (rubble), but the demand for this article may not be compatible with the show, the fact that supply will exceed demand for sure.

Offered oil company Royal Dutch Shell (Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company) solution to some of the problems that can result from shale oil refining, the company calls this solution the conversion process at the site (ICP), where such a plan to keep the rock place, instead of extracting the rocks from the site and processed, are drilling holes in rocks that contain oil reserves, and is lowered thermal heaters in the ground, and after two or more years, will begin the rock temperature that contains oil to rise slowly, and begins kerogen to leak out, and after this oil is collecting output at the site and pumped to the surface, and thus can be dispensed from the extraction of rocks from the earth process, and reduce the costs that can be disbursed, as Shell design also features a wall of freezing, which is basically a barrier is placed around the oil shale site where they are pumping cryogenic fluids in the subsoil the earth, and works of this wall to freeze any ground water can enter the site and prevents harmful substances such as hydrocarbons from the spill.

Because of the obstacles that still exist even now, is not to start producing oil shale commercially on a large scale, it is still more expensive than traditional fossil fuels, and more harmful to the environment, but with the decline in crude oil and the high price of resources, oil shale - will become, especially in the light of Shell plan - The next target is undoubtedly, in the period in which the world was suffering from a major oil crisis in the seventies of the last century, ordered the administration of President "Jimmy Carter" financed oil shale research, but when oil prices returned to fall again, diminished supplies that are devoted to the research of fuel unconventional, but with the return of oil prices to rise again, the oil shale will return to be a magnet again