End of Oil Age - Part 4 (Oil Shale)

One of the unconventional hydrocarbon which is under research is oil shale.
It is know that hydrocarbon to be generated and accumulated in the reservoir requires to go through a certain cycle of stages. The first stage is the hydrocarbon generation into the source rock. Source rock is mainly shale. The next stage is the expulsion of this hydrocarbon from shale and migrating toward the reservoir trap.
Oil shale simply didn't continue this process and it was trapped inside the shale as hydrocarbon or it didn't even go through the full maturation process it is still the raw material of hydrocarbon which is called Kyrogen.
There are very ambitious research in rock mountains in the states to cook the kyrogen in-situ and produce the cooked oil.
The another way is to mine the shale and extracting the oil through series of processes.
It will be similar to the oil sand in West Canada.
Many countries in the world have huge reserves of oil shale even the non major oil producing countries like Egypt and Jordan.
It is still far from the commercial usage but research is ongoing and dreams and ambitions are there.
Shale recently acquired exclusive access to extensive concession in Jordan to do the research about the oil shale and its value.