Although there are a number of ways in which oil shale can be used to produce energy (such as direct incineration to produce heat and electricity or mining it and processing it at the surface in a ‘retort’), JOSCo believes in a novel technology currently under development. The technology is called the In situ Conversion Process (“ICP”).

ICP extracts hydrocarbons from oil shale by using underground heaters to heat the oil shale in place. The heating process pyrolyses the organic matter in the oil shale and converts this matter into oil and hydrocarbon gas underground. These products are then produced using conventional extracting technology.

Unlike surface retorting, ICP has the potential to access deeper, richer and thicker oil shale resources without the complications of surface and subsurface mining. ICP also produces light crude oil that requires less refining steps to produce high quality transportation fuels (e.g. gasoline, jet and diesel fuels).

It can also produce a larger volume of oil and gas from a relatively smaller surface area compared to surface retort technology. Surface retorting involves strip-mining the oil shale and transporting it to a retort facility for pyrolysis. The fact that oil shale is brought to the surface presents the subsequent problem of disposal of shale ash after pyrolysis. With ICP technology the pyrolysed shale remains in place underground.

In a series of field tests since the mid-1980s, the ICP technology has proven to work technically. Work is ongoing to demonstrate that it can be applied commercially and that it is suitable to develop the oil shale deposits in Jordan.

The ICP technology is proprietary to JOSCo’s parent company Shell. To learn more about ICP technology development, click here

To learn more about oil shale, click here