MOSCOW, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Russia's estimated shale oil reserves exceed those of the United States, although the country currently finds it more economically viable to focus on conventional oil production, the head of Russia's Federal Agency for Subsoil Use (Rosnedra) Oleg Kazanov said Tuesday.
"By the volume of reserves, Russia potentially surpasses the United States by a substantial margin," Kazanov said in an interview with Russia's RIA Novosti news agency, noting that Russia's shale formations are conservatively estimated to contain around 30 billion tons.
In Russia, available investment resources are fewer as "the country possesses large volumes of easily recoverable conventional oil with relatively low production costs, which directly competes with shale oil projects," Kazanov said, adding that despite challenges, Russia continues to advance technologies for developing hard-to-recover reserves. ■