CHAPEM has provided consulting services to prestigious companies operating both in Morocco and abroad such as ONE the National Office of Electricity, OCP GROUP, IAEA: the International Atomic Energy Agency, PETRONAS: the National Malaysian Petroleum Company, TOTAL the giant oil company and recently CEMOS GROUP.
ONE
CHAPEM carried out in 2002, for the National Electricity Office ONE, the synthesis of laboratory, pilot combustion tests and feasibility studies carried out within the framework of their electrical energy production project using Tarfaya oil shales
54. Tarfaya Oil Shale Development Project, Synthesis Study and Recommendation, prepared by Chapem for ONE, March 2002.
PETRONAS
Malaysia's National Oil Company PETRONAS, which carried out offshore oil drilling off Rabat, Morocco in 2005, took an interest in oil shale development and contracted CHAPEM to support them in this new project.
Dr Bekri therefore served as a senior consultant for three years for a team formed for this purpose within the Technology Management Unit of PETRONAS in Kuala Lumpur.
After a phase of getting to know the different aspects of the project with visits made to Australia and Canada, the team focused on the development of a programme of studies and work to be carried out for the development of an oil production project from Tarfaya oil shales.
Unfortunately, no Tarfaya oil shale permit has been granted by ONHYM to PETRONAS for this important R&D project, whose work program is spread over a period of two years with a cost estimated at three million dollars.
As part of the R&D activities, Dr Bekri has also supervised modelling work on the pyrolysis of the Tarfaya shales carried out by Petronas engineers, whose results were presented at the 2006 and 2007 Colorado School Oil Shale Symposia.
55. Petronas Oil shale Project in Tarfaya, Work Programme, Schedule and Budget, August 2008, Doc. Chapem.
56. Prediction of Shale Oil Retort Product Modelled using iCON, a Steady State Simulation Software, S. A Zainal Abidin, O. Bekri, A. J. Jalaludin, 26th Oil Shale Symposium, Colorado School of Mines, October 16- 18, 2006.
57. Oil Shale Pyrolysis Reaction Model by Solving Ordinary Differential Equations Approach, S.A. Zainal Abidin, O. Bekri, A. Jalaludin, M.N. Fuad, Symposium, Colorado School of Mines, October 15 - 19, 2007.
TOTAL
As part of Total's training program, CHAPEM led, at Total's headquarters in La Defense - Paris in December 2006, for around twenty TOTAL executives, a training and information day on oil shale development with examples of Timahdit and Tarfaya shales including:
• Geology and Resource Assessment
• Oil Shale Characteristics
• Oil Extraction
• Electric Power Generation
• Mine and Process Engineering Studies
• Project Economical Study
OCP
Dr Bekri joined OCP Group in 2009 as R&D Director when the company was executing its Operational Transformation Program.
Dr Bekri was assigned to launch and lead a newly created R&D Department at the Mining Pole that covers resource development and ore processing at the laboratory and pilot scale.
In conformity with the new R&D strategy, presented by Dr Bekri and validated at the “OCP R&D Assises”, the Geology Department as well as all the laboratories of the phosphate beneficiation plants were integrated into the Mining Pole R&D Department.
Developing and implementing a beneficiation project for the extraction and marketing of heavy metals and radioactive elements from the phosphate ore was also an important objective that was part of this strategy.
IAEA
Dr Bekri participated in a workshop on "Supporting Sustainable Uranium Mining in less prepared Areas" organized by The Division of Nuclear Fuel Cycle & Waste Technology of the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA, 16-18 November 2011, Vienna.
This was to prepare the outline of a 3 years training program for the sustainable Uranium mining in African countries. During this workshop, Dr Bekri made a presentation on the fundamentals for sustainable uranium mining operations.
58. Fundamentals for Sustainable Uranium Mining Operations, Dr Omar Bekri, IAEA CS on "Supporting Sustainable Uranium Mining in less prepared Areas" 16-18 November 2011, Vienna.
CEMOS GROUP
GLOBAL OIL SHALE GROUP, today CEMOS GROUP PLC is UK company created in 2011 for the exploration and exploitation of oil shale. Initially interested in shales from Australia and the Middle East, CEMOS GROUP, when contacted by CHAPEM, decided to carry out its first project in Morocco.
The drop in oil prices to less than $ 50 in February 2015 led Dr Bekri to recommend that CEMOS shift its focus to producing cement from shale instead.
As part of the execution of the first phase of the project, Dr Bekri set up in 2016 the company CEMOS CIMENT SA and supervised the installation of a 45 t/h Loesche Cement Grinding Unit in Tarfaya which is now in its fourth year of production.