History
Humans have used oil shale as a fuel since prehistoric times, because it generally burns without any processing. Its occurrence was known in Jordan from ancient times, as evidenced by its use as a building and decorative material from the ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad and Abbasid periods. The modern exploitation of Jordanian oil shale began under Ottoman rule prior to and during World War I, when the German Army produced shale oil from the Yarmouk area. The oil shale was processed to operate the Hijazi Railway. It was mined and processed near the Maqarin station along the Haifa spur of the railroad, which partly follows the Yarmouk River valley. In addition to the shale oil production, oil shale was also utilized as a mix with coal to fuel locomotives.
The German Geological Mission studied the El Lajjun deposit in 1968. In 1979, the Natural Resources Authority of Jordan commissioned a study from the German Federal Institute of Natural Resources and Geosciences to evaluate the Juref ed Darawish, Sultani, El Lajjun, and El Hisa deposits and in 1980 from Klöckner-Lurgi to evaluate the pre-feasibility of construction of an oil shale retorting complex using Lurgi-Ruhrgas process and a power plant with 300 MW capacity using Lurgi's Circulating Fluidized Bed (CFB) combustion process. In 1980, the Soviet Technopromexport company conducted a prefeasibility study of the 300-400 MW direct burning conventional combustion power plant. In 1986, updated and expanded studies were ordered from Klöckner-Lurgi.
In 1985-1986, Chinese oil company Sinopec carried out a test for processing El Lajjun oil shale utilizing the Fushun-type retort. Although this process was technically viable, the cooperation with Sinopec was halted due to high operation costs. B.B.C, Lummus/Combustion Eng. and Bechtel Pyropower carried out the CIDA and USAID funded study of utilizing Sultani oil shale for direct combustion in CFB power plants.
The Krzhizhanovsky Power Engineering Institute (ENIN) conducted processing tests of Jordan oil shale using Galoter technology finding the technology suitable. In 1999, Suncor Energy signed a memorandum of understanding with the Jordanian Government to use the Alberta Taciuk Processing technology to exploit the El Lajjun oil shale deposit. However, this project was never implemented.
Read more about this topic: Oil Shale In Jordan
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