oil at $120 becomes biggest energy bet, page-6

We have to be careful talking about Shale oil and oil shale.

Oil Shale is the old Ruddle Cr etc, which is not actually oil, it is Kerogen, and requires heating/retorts to convert it to oil. If ever proved economical to extract than reserves are absolutely massive, that is if we wish to ignore the CO2 production.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale

Shale Oil, is normal crude trapped in Shale,eg, the Bakken Formation in North Dakota. These formation have become economical to develop due the adoption and combination of horizontal drilling and multiple frac packs, anything up to 10 to 20 per well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakken_formation

This Bakken oil will actually compete with Linc's Wyoming oil for pipeline space to Cushing OK and onward to the GOM, of which there is currently a great shortage. That is why WTI is $20 cheaper than Brent. Hopefully the pipeine situation is sorted before Linc's Wyoming oil production increases too much. That was one of the advantages of the ERG oil, it was on the coast and attracted Brent oil price.