Amazon Watch an earlier court's dismissal on the basis of "forum non conveniens." Thus, legal proceedings were started in Ecuador in 2003. Amazon Watch supports the Ecuadorian plaintiffs by publishing a press kit alleging that Chevron (corporate successor to Texaco) should be held accountable for the dumping of of toxic waste water into a region of Ecuador's Amazon rainforest inhabited by more than 30,000 people – purported to be one of the largest oil related contaminations ever, far exceeding that of the Exxon Valdez disaster. A 2011 decision in Ecuador ordered Chevron to pay $9.5 billion. Ecuador's Supreme Court in 2013 affirmed
History of the oil shale industry in the United States supply, and proximity to markets. At the beginning of 1923, a retort was reported to be making test runs on local Sunbury Shale in Pike County, Ohio, and another southern Ohio oil shale retort was being planned. The high price of petroleum encouraged intensified exploration in the US and elsewhere, and eventually resulted in the discovery of large new petroleum deposits. American oil production surged in the early 1920s, particularly in north Texas and the Los Angeles Basin in California, driving down both imports and the price of oil. A barrel of oil in the Midcontinent region lost almost two-thirds