New Consolidated Gold Fields Ltd Estonian Branch (commonly known as Goldfields) was an

oil shale Oil shale is an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general composition of oil shales constitut ...

company located in

Kohtla-Nõmme Kohtla-Nõmme is a borough ( et, alev) in Toila Parish, in Ida-Viru County, in northeastern Estonia. It had a population of 1,047 (as of 1 January 2009) and an area of 4.64 km². In 1930s New Consolidated Gold Fields opened a shale oil extractio ...

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

. It was a subsidiary of

Consolidated Gold Fields Consolidated Gold Fields was a British gold-mining company. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until it was acquired by Hanson in 1988. History Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa was fou ...

New Consolidated Gold Fields began oil shale research and development in the late 1920s in England. EPA (1979), p. C-10 In 1930 it began construction of the

shale oil extraction 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 up ...

complex at Kohtla-Nõmme. It consisted of a shale oil extraction plant, a crushing mill, laboratory, power plant, office building and services facilities, as also housing for 30 workers, dispensary and sauna. The first plant was built in 1931. The plant was equipped with eight rotating retorts (Davidson retorts). Each of these retorts was capable of processing 15 tonnes of oil shale per day. This facility continued to operate until 1961. Ots (2004), pp. 15–16 In 1934 the company doubled its production by building the second shale oil extraction plant. In 1934, '' Eesti Kiviõli'' and ''New Consolidated Gold Fields'' established the service station chain ''Trustivapaa Bensiini'' (now:

Teboil Oy Teboil Ab is an oil company in Finland, engaged in the marketing, sales and distribution of petroleum products and operation of filling and service stations. It is a subsidiary of the Russian company Lukoil. History Teboil was established b ...

) in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. During 1940 this chain sold more shale-oil-derived gasoline than did the entire conventional gasoline market in Estonia. Holmberg (2008), pp. 112–114 In 1937, the company opened the Kohtla underground mine. After the occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union, the company was nationalized in 1940. The Kohtla-Nõmme shale oil extraction complex continued to operate until 1961. The underground mine stayed operational until 2001.

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* * * {{refend Oil shale companies of Estonia Ida-Viru County Synthetic fuel companies Non-renewable resource companies established in 1930 Non-renewable resource companies disestablished in 1940 1930 establishments in Estonia Defunct energy companies of Estonia Defunct mining companies Defunct oil companies Companies nationalised by the Soviet Union 1940 disestablishments in Estonia

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