Волжский сланцевый бассейн

Multibillion oil shale resources within the Volga shale basin central part (Privolzhsky Federal District: Samara, Saratov, Ulyanovsk, and Orenburg regions) are low-quality sulfurous mineral raw materials. The commercial rhenium content in oil shale was found in the randomly selected samples from the Kashpirsky, Orlovsky, Perelyubsky, and Kotsebinsky fields. Rhenium concentration varies from 0.013 to 0.22 g/t with the ore marginal commercial concentration (as a concomitant component) of 0.05 g/t.

The Volga shale basin is located in the southeastern part of the East European Platform within the Volga-Urals anteclise and the instrumental zone of the Caspian depression. The sediments of the Volga tier of the Upper Jurassic are sedimentary in the basin. The geological reserves of the Volga shale basin are more than 40 billion tons. Investigations of oil shale revealed the presence in it of significant contents of dispersed and noble metals, rhenium and platinum group metals: palladium, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium.