The use of Oil Shale for Road Coating

The world's strong economic growth and increasing populations have generated a remarkably growing demand for resources, especially energy. Current conventional sources cannot meet the future needs. Efforts are being focused on renewable energies, deep-sea oil and the development of new techniques to value heavy oils, tar sands and oil shale. This could bridge the gap between energy demand and supply. Several countries with oil shale deposits have launched projects to examine the possibility of exploiting these deposits. Morocco is one of these countries, with significant oil shale deposits in the Middle Atlas (Timahdit), Tarfaya, Tangier and Grand Atlas regions (Fig. 1) [1]. Morocco has a reserve of around 53 billion barrels of oil shale, in addition to a rich capacity for shale gas and oil. The exploration works for these unconventional hydrocarbons, which began several years ago, has proved highly encouraging. The first research into the development of oil shale in Morocco began in Tangier, with the creation of the oil shale company of Tangier. The company built a pilot plant with a daily capacity of 80 tons of oil shale. The Timahdit and Tarfaya deposits were discovered in the 1960’s.