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 west of the Mississippi River. These include some, such as the Woodford Shale of Oklahoma, which are near-stratigraphic equivalents to the Devonian/Mississippian shales of the eastern US. The largest oil-shale resource in the world is contained in the Eocene Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming in three basins: the Piceance Basin, Green River Basin, and Uinta Basin. The Green River oil shales have been the focus of most efforts of the past hundred years to establish an American oil shale industry. The Green River oil “shale” is actually a marl, and some beds yield up to 70 gallons