Baltic, Business, Energy, Estonia, Good for Business, Oil

VKG Priit Rohumaa told Vikerraadio that yesterday's law amendment gives VKG and all other oil shale consumers flexibility to set their limits between years and mine sometimes more and sometimes less.

Last year in December, VKG closed two Kiviter technology-based shale oil plants. There were several reasons: the low world market price of oil, high price of oil shale and exhausting its maximum allowed mining volume.

Rohumaa today confirmed that now VKG will re-launch one of its plants in a month and the second in about six months time. Once the plants are restarted, it provides within VKG group directly jobs to 250-300 people. Around 200 more people will get work in services and logistics.

Since 2009, the annual oil shale mining rate in Estonia has been set at 20 million tonnes.

Over the past seven years, the amount of mined oil shale has not exceeded 16 million tonnes per year, and thus the parliament allowed with its Monday decision to mine the unused limit in the future.