Eesti Energia on a shopping spree in US

Estonian state power company Eesti Energia continues expansion abroad and has recently reached an agreement with the State of Utah to buy the state’s largest private oil shale deposit and build a shale oil refinery, writes Eesti Ekspress.

The Estonian company has already acquired Oil Shale Exploration Company whose oil shale reserve enables to process 2.1 billion barrels of oil. The deposit is large enough to cover the refinery’s production need for at least 100 years.

The parties have not disclosed the purchase amount, but it is speculated to be tens of million of euros. „Today we can buy the deposit at a reasonable price since the oil shale boom has not yet started in US,“ said Eesti Energia CEO Sandor Liive.

The shale oil refinery would process up to 57,000 barrels of oil a day which makes it 1.5 times more powerful than a similar refinery that Eesti Energia plans to build in Jordan and 2 times more powerful than its future refinery in Narva.

US is especially interesting for Eesti Energia since it has 72% of the world’s known oil shale deposits, mainly in the states of Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. In comparison, Jordan has 4.2% and Estonia has 1.1% of world oil shale deposits.

Eesti Ekspress asks rhetorically whether the state power company has found Estonia’s own Nokia in the form of shale oil.