Energy, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Oil

Answering the question if the plan of the company to build a factory producing diesel fuel from shale oil has been cancelled, Sutter said that building own refinery plant is only one option, which requires very large volumes of oil production. "But there is also the possibility to start producing diesel fuel from oil shale in some already-existing refinery," he said in an interview.

Sutter said that the refinery will be a partner from the European Union and it must be technologically suitable, commercially-motivated and have unused capacity. "Negotiations are underway, and we can give more information when decisions are made. Currently we are working on research and development, the business plan is not currently the number one problem," said Sutter.

Estonian state-owned energy giant Eesti Energia is test launching its Enefit280 shale oil plant this year and initially planned to also build a diesel fuel refinery using that oil. Estonian privately-owned chemical industry VKG announced however in November last year that its shale oil plants have been launched more successfully than expected, and this means that its plans of producing car fuel can be revived sooner than could be expected.