Abstract: The Nongan oil shale mine lies in the southeastern rising area of the Songliao Basin and oil shale was mainly hosted in the 1st member of the Upper Cretaceous Qingshankou Formation and the 1st-2nd member of the the Upper Cretaceous Nenjiang Formation. The oil shale in the area is good in quality and is in immature lithogenic stage. The kerogen types of the organic matter of the oil shale are Ⅰ-Ⅱ₁ types. Oil yield of the oil shale are apparently, linearly, and positively related to the content of organic carbon and hydrogen in the oil shale. When the content of the organic carbon is more than 6% or the content of hydrogen in rocks is more than 1%, then they can be classified as oil shale. Moreover, the maceral of organic kerogen can reflect the type of organic matter, which also has relation to oil yield. During the sedimentary period of the Qingshankou-Nenjiang Formations, humidwarm palaeoclimate conditions, largescale marine aggression and oxygendeficient events affected the abundance and types of the organic matter in oil shales, thus, also affected the oil yield of the oil shale apparently.

Key words: Songliao Basin, Nongan area, oil shale, oil yield, controlling factor