Operations
Enefit American Oil owns or leases 30,274 acres (122.51 km2) of oil shale property in the Uintah Basin in Utah, containing an estimated 2.6 billion barrels (410×10^6 m3) of recoverable shale oil. It also leases from the United States Bureau of Land Management the abandoned White River Oil Shale Mine 45 miles (72 km) southeast of Vernal, Utah. The White River Mine was developed by the White River Shale Corporation in the early 1980s. In 1986, after termination of operations, the mine and surface facilities were turned over to the Bureau of Land Management.
Enefit is proposing to develop a greenfield oil shale mining and mineral processing facility on 13,441 acres (5,439 ha) of private lands in the Uinta Basin of eastern Utah (the "South Project"). As contemplated, the South Project will entail surface mining oil shale from approximately 7,000 acres (2,800 ha), producing 50,000 barrels per day (7,900 m3/d) of shale oil, and over 500 million barrels (79×10^6 m3) over the life of the project. The company planned to begin commercial production in mid 2020s.
Technology
Originally OSEC planned to use the Alberta Taciuk Process (ATP). To use the ATP retort technology, OSEC entered into a license agreement with AECOM, then owner of the ATP proprietary information. However, on 9 June 2008, OSEC announced it had signed an agreement with Petrobras and Mitsui according to which Petrobras agreed to undertake a technical, economic and environmental commercial feasibility study of Petrosix shale oil extraction technology for oil shale owned or leased by OSEC in Utah. Few results of the study were disclosed. After acquiring 100% of OSEC shares in March 2011, Eesti Energia announced it would conduct a new commercial study using its Enefit Process. The company has produced oil from Utah oil shale in its test facilities in Germany using the Enefit technology and is optimizing and is exploring a variety of alternatives and modifications to the process of shale oil production.
