Abstract: Oil shale resources are abundant in the world. The inplace shale oil resources, accounted from the world proven oil shale reserves, are much larger than the world crude oil proven reserves. US has the most abundant oil shale reserves in the world, the followings are: Russia, Zaire, Brazil, Canada, Jordan, Australia and China. The oil shale retorting for producing shale oil started since the first half of the nineteenth century in Western European countries. First retorting built in France, then England, Germany, Spain, etc. Hereafter, due to the development of cheaper crude oil, the shale oil production decreased. However, shale oil industry became active again due to the world oil crisis. During the history of more than one hundred years, oil shale industry waved several times. Today, China, Estonia and Brazil have their shale oil commercial production. Estonia, Germany, China and Israel have the oil shale combustion enterprises for producing steam and power. Since the recent higher world crude oil price, the shale oil production in many countries becomes profitable. China, Estonia and some other countries are planning to enlarge the shale oil production; Mongolia, Jordan, etc., are considering to build up shale oil plant; US intended to utilize his plentiful oil shale resources.

Key words: oil shale, retorting, combustion, shale oil