Green River Shale formation has been under testing for a very long time. The petroleum cannot be produced by only drilling, even with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.
Previous attempts of this type formation involved mining, crushing the rock releasing Kerogen that was made into a syncrude suitable for an existing refinery.
Shell has been running a pilot program in the area for a long time. They have found by cooking the shale while still in the ground, what gets released is a light oil, esentially processed in place.
More info at:
http://www.shell.us/aboutshell/projects-locations/mahogany/technology.html
Just like the Canadian Oil sands don’t actually produce crude oil (it is bitumen) and it cannot be produced by drilling alone (they use steam assisted gravity drain, or mining), it really doesn’t matter. Like Bakken, Eagle Ford, etc it is more expensive to produce than traditional drilling. But after the products are produced and processed, my truck doesn’t tell the difference in the gasoline.
Yep. I knew all that. It’s unfortunate this stuff is called shale oil because it invariably gets confused with the shale oil and gas being cracked now.