In the 10th century, the Arab physician Masawaih Al-Mardini (Mesue Younger) stated that he was experimenting with extracting oil from "some species of bituminous shale". The first patent for shale oil extraction was granted by the British Crown in 1684 to three men who had "found a way of extracting and utilizing large quantities of pitch, tar, and oyle out of the stone." Modern origins in France The industrial extraction of shale oil is carried out by a process invented by Alexander Selligue in 1838, with improvements later used in the process invented by Scotsman James Wong ten years later. In the late 19th century, the plant was established in Australia, Brazil, Canada, and the United States. Pumpherston countered that its predecessor's 1894 invention of heat, significantly less dependent on coal, marked the separation of the oil shale industry from the coal industry.
China (Manchuria), Estonia, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland began extracting shale oil in the early 20th century. However, the discovery of large crude oil reserves in the Middle East in the 1920s and mid-20th century brought much of the oil shale industry to a halt. In 1944, the United States resumed oil shale extraction as part of its synthetic liquid fuels program. These industries continued until oil prices fell sharply in the 1980s. The last U.S. shale retort operated by an oil company, Unocal, closed in 1991. The U.S. program was relaunched in 2003, followed by a 2005 program that allowed commercial leasing of oil shale and oil sands on federal lands under the Energy Policy Act.
As of 2010 [update], shale oil extraction operations are in Estonia, Brazil and China. In 2008 its industry produced approximately 11.65 million liters of oil shale (733 million barrels). [16] Australia, the United States, and Canada have tested the implementation of shale oil extraction technologies and business plans through demonstration projects;. Morocco and Jordan announced their intention to do the same for commercial use in only four processes: Kiviter, Galoter, Fushun and Petrosix.