World progress of oil shale in-situ exploitation methods

The in-situ technology,although in the industrial testing period,will be expected to develop much more oil shale resources with high abundance and in deep formations because its advantages like good quality of the product,high ratio of oil recovery,less occupied area,and being environmental friendly.This paper introduces advantages and disadvantages of the in-situ technologies classified by heating methods:a.In situ wall conduction technologies include Shell's ICP(the In-Situ Conversion Process),ExxonMobil's ElectrofracTM,and IEP GFC(Independent Energy Partners' Geothermic Fuels Cells Process);b.The in situ technologies that use externally-heated gases to decompose oil shale by the Taiyuan University of Technology,Chevron's CRUSH,EGL Resources Process,Petro Probe,and MWE's IGE(Mountain West Energy's In Situ Gas Extraction);c.The concept of oil shale volumetric heating by radio waves(radio frequency processing) was developed by LLNL(Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory),Raytheon and by other inventors.Compared to global research on this technology,China is still in a blank field.This paper also suggests that more studies in China should be encouraged on this technology based on oil shale resource characterized by high burial depth and low-grade deposits.