Oil from shale as a viable replacement of depleted crude reserves: processes and challenges

Increasing demands for petroleum and lagging discoveries will inflate prices to a point where alternative resources will become viable. A gigantic reserve of oil shale in the Piceance Basin provides such an alternative. The hydroretorting process has the potential for producing millions of barrels of premium syncrude per day from this resource. This report concentrates on the desirable features of the process and on the timing of challenges yet to be resolved.