Recognizing
Geochemical Facies to Improve Oil Shale Resource
Assessment and Development
Ruble, Tim E.1, Brian Jarvie1,
Michael D. Lewan2, R. Paul Philip3, Daniel M. Jarvie4
(1) Humble Geochemical Services, Humble, TX (2)
Oil shales have
recently emerged as a major nonconventional world oil
resource due to changes in economic and technological considerations.
Innovative in-situ thermal conduction retorting methods are currently being
tested to exploit some of the estimated 3.3 trillion barrels of in-place shale
oil, as assessed worldwide by the USGS1. The largest single known deposit is
the Green River Shale in the western US, which is thought to represent about
half of this appraised total and is the focus of the current study. Not all of
these in-place resources are recoverable; however, even a moderate estimate of
800 billion barrels of
AAPG Search and Discover Article #90063©2007 AAPG Annual Convention, Long Beach, California