History of the oil shale industry in the United States Act of 1985 which among other things abolished the United States' Synthetic Liquid Fuels Program. Union finally bowed to continued low oil prices and closed the project in 1991, rather than complete the US$2 billion project. Over several decades, some of the world's largest oil companies (Amoco, Arco, Chevron, Exxon, Gulf, Phillips, Shell, Sohio, Sunoco, Texaco, Union Oil) had spent billions of dollars to start an oil shale industry in the Green River Formation, the world's largest oil shale resource. But in the end, cheap petroleum prices drove oil shale out of business. Even after the oil shale bust, some
Oil shale in Israel company envisioned bringing bitumen by pipeline from the Ashdod refinery and returning product along the same corridor. However, the plan was not implemented, and Hom Tov subsequently ceased to operate. In July 2011, Israel Energy Initiatives, a subsidiary of Genie Energy, received a one-year extension of its three year exclusive license to explore oil shale resources on in Israel's Shfela region. The project is suspended. In May 2011, the Russian energy company Inter RAO announced that it had received a license to develop oil shale resources in the Negev desert. The company was said to be planning an oil extraction