Another Russian company, Zaab Group, in addition to NIS Gazpromneft, is interested in the processing of oil shale in Aleksinac.
Zaab Group, which is engaged in the exploitation of oil and oil shale, announced that earlier this year they have informed the Serbian Ministry of Energy, Mining and Spatial Planning that they are interested in the project.
“In a letter dated February 7, 2012 we have informed then Minister Oliver Dulic about our interest and asked for additional information, we briefed him about our large experience in this field” says in the statement of the group, regarding the recent statement of the Minister of Mining, Milan Bacevic in Moscow that NIS is interested in shale processing in the Aleksinac basin.
Zaab Group is engaged in oil exploitation in the Caspian Basin and in Canada, where they have concessions for the exploitation and processing of shale in two Canadian provinces, and they are developing similar projects in the Middle East, Yemen and Qatar.
Bačević, after a session of the Serbian-Russian Intergovernmental Committee for Cooperation in Moscow, said that in addition to NIS, Fushun company from China and one Estonian company have shown interest to apply for the tender for the extraction and processing of oil shale in the Aleksinac basin.
Bačević said he expects the Government of Serbia to announce the tender in late December.
Earlier this year he announced that the Ministry intends to intensify the research and exploitation of oil shale project, from which Serbia could get about 1.5 million tons of synthetic oil a year, for 10 years.
The assessment of the Ministry is that our country has about two billion tons of oil shale reserves, out of which only in the Aleksinac basin, reserves of 400 million tons were confirmed.
Source Serbia Energy Magazine
