There are oil shale deposits in Australia which range from small deposits to large reserves. Deposits, varying by their age and origin, are located in about a third of eastern Australia. In 2012, the demonstrated oil shale reserves were estimated at 58 billion tonnes.[1] The easiest to recover deposits are located in Queensland.
The developments started in the 1860s exploiting deposits in New South Wales and Tasmania. The oil shale industry stopped in 1952 and restarted in the late 1990s. In 2012, one pilot shale oil plant and several development projects operated in Queensland and Tasmania.