Shale oil in the context of "Tight oil"

In a chemistry laboratory, a retort is a device used for distillation or dry distillation of substances. It consists of a spherical vessel with a long downward-pointing neck. The liquid to be distilled is placed in the vessel and heated. The neck acts as a condenser, allowing the vapors to condense and flow along the neck to a collection vessel placed underneath.

In the chemical industry, a retort is an airtight vessel in which substances are heated for a chemical reaction producing gaseous products to be collected in a collection vessel or for further processing. Such industrial-scale retorts are used in shale-oil extraction, in the production of charcoal and in the recovery of mercury in gold-mining processes or from hazardous waste. A process of heating oil shale to produce shale oil, oil shale gas, and spent shale is commonly called retorting. Airtight vessels to apply pressure as well as heat are called autoclaves.

Ida-Viru County (Estonian: Ida-Viru maakond or Ida-Virumaa; Russian: Ида-Вируский уезд, romanized: Ida-Viruskij uezd) is one of the 15 counties of Estonia. It is the most northeastern part of the country. The county contains large deposits of oil shale – the main mineral mined in Estonia. Oil shale is used in the production of shale oil and in thermal power plants. The capital of the county is the town of Jõhvi which is administratively united with the Jõhvi Parish; nevertheless, Narva is the largest town in the county in terms of population and at the same time the third-largest city in Estonia after Tallinn and Tartu.

In January 2019, Ida-Viru County had a population of 136,240 – constituting 10.3% of the total population in Estonia. It borders Lääne-Viru County in the west, Jõgeva County in the southwest and Russia (Leningrad Oblast) in the east. It is the only county in Estonia where Russians constitute the majority of population (73.1% in 2010), the second highest being Harju (28%).

Synthetic crude is the output from a bitumen/extra heavy oil upgrader facility used in connection with oil sand production. It may also refer to shale oil, an output from an oil shale pyrolysis. The properties of the synthetic crude depend on the processes used in the upgrading. Typically, it is low in sulfur and has an API gravity of around 30. It is also known as "upgraded crude".

Synthetic crude is an intermediate product produced when an extra-heavy or unconventional oil source is upgraded into a transportable form. Synthetic crude is then shipped to oil refineries where it is refined into finished products. Synthetic crude may also be mixed, as a diluent, with heavy oil to create synbit. Synbit is more viscous than synthetic crude, but can also be a less expensive alternative for transporting heavy oil to a conventional refinery.

Shale oil extraction is an industrial process for unconventional oil production. This process converts kerogen in oil shale into shale oil by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. The resultant shale oil is used as fuel oil or upgraded to meet refinery feedstock specifications by adding hydrogen and removing sulfur and nitrogen impurities.

Shale oil extraction is usually performed above ground (ex situ processing) by mining the oil shale and then treating it in processing facilities. Other modern technologies perform the processing underground (on-site or in situ processing) by applying heat and extracting the oil via oil wells.

Spent shale or spent oil shale (also known as retorted shale) is a solid residue from the shale-oil extraction process of producing synthetic shale oil from oil shale. It consists of inorganic compounds (minerals) and remaining organic matter known as char—a carbonaceous residue formed from kerogen. Depending on the extraction process and the amount of remaining organic matter, spent shale may be classified as oil shale coke, semi-coke, or coke-ash residue, known also as oil shale ash. According to the European Union waste list, all these types of spent shale are classified as hazardous waste.

Oil shale coke is created by chamber ovens which were used for oil shale gas production. Vertical retorts create mainly semi-coke. Most solid heat-carrier processes create coke-ash residue, as the semi-coke created during the process is combusted for the process's energy needs.