Abstract: Shortage of petroleum is the “bottleneck” of economical development. As the import amount of petroleum increases continually, the risk of relying on external factors aggravates significantly. Among those methods of ensuring the supply of liquid fuel, shale oil is a realistic energy substitute for petroleum. According to the recent result of the countrywide oil & gas resources evaluation, China has abundant oil shale resources and the advantage to develop the industry of oil shale. The history of shale oil industry has lasted for centuries,and lots of studies have been done on it. Since the last century, researches on the oil shale have been carried out in many courtiers. There is a good technical base of processing the shale oil into other kinds of products. We should cherish and protect the precious oil shale resources and develop the advanced and benign environmental retorting techniques based on the situation of our country. We should make good use of oil shale resources and contribute to our national economy.

Key words: oil shale, realistic resources, replaceable energy sources, comprehensive utilize technology