Publications

Survey of Energy Resources 2007

Oil Shale Country Notes

Thailand

Some exploratory drilling by the Government was made as early as 1935 near Mae Sot in Tak Province on the Thai-Burmese border. The oil shale beds are relatively thin, underlying about 53 km2 in the Mae Sot basin and structurally complicated by folding and faulting.

Another deposit at Li, Lampoon Province is small, estimated at 15 million tonnes of oil shale and yielding 50-171 l of oil per tonne.

Some 18.6 billion tonnes of oil shale, yielding an estimated 6.4 billion barrels of shale oil, have been identified in the Mae Sot Basin, but to date it has not been economic to exploit the deposits. In 2000 the Thai Government estimated that total proved recoverable reserves of shale oil were 810 million tonnes.