Shale oil extraction Energy estimates that the "ex-situ" processing would be economic at sustained average world oil prices above $54 per barrel and "in-situ" processing would be economic at prices above $35 per barrel. These estimates assume a return rate of 15%. Royal Dutch Shell announced in 2006 that its Shell ICP technology would realize a profit when crude oil prices are higher than $30 per barrel ($190/m), while some technologies at full-scale production assert profitability at oil prices even lower than $20 per barrel ($130/m). To increase the efficiency of oil shale retorting and by this the viability of the shale oil
History of the oil shale industry in the United States of oil per short ton of shale. Estimated in-place resources are capable of generating 4.2 trillion barrels of oil. Although the Piceance basin of western Colorado has the smallest lateral extent of Green River shale, it contains the greatest amount of high-grade shale. Using a cut-off of 25 gallons per ton, the Piceance has about 352 billion barrels of in-place resource. The Elko Formation of northeastern Nevada is an oil shale, late Eocene to early Oligocene in age. Like the Green River Formation, it contains beds deposited in a lake. Faulting and subsequent erosion have removed most of the original