'The Global Oil Shale Market is Worth $2.88bn in 2011' Says Visiongain Report

'The Global Oil Shale Market is Worth $2.88bn in 2011' Says Visiongain Report
LONDON, August 22, 2011/PRNewswire/ --

http://www.visiongain.com/report/673/the-oil-shale-market-2011-2021

Oil shale is not a newly discovered energy source; it has been utilised around the world in various places and at various times for more than 150 years. Oil shale is an organic-rich sedimentary rock, found in around 40 countries throughout the world. It can be utilised as an energy source by heating the shale - through either an in-situ or ex-situ process - to release a substance called kerogen, which can then be refined into oil.

However, the high costs of oil shale extraction, together with the ready availability of conventional oil reserves, have made the oil shale industry uneconomic for most of the 20th century. Over the past few years, a combination of high oil prices, improved extraction technologies, and increasing energy demands has reignited interest in the oil shale industry, and a number of countries are currently seeking to establish major domestic oil shale markets. Visiongain's The Oil Shale Market 2011-2021 report calculates the global oil shale market, defined as, spending on new infrastructure and upgrading of existing oil shale facilities plus spending on R&D, to be worth $2.88bn in 2011.