The International Energy Agency defines conventional oil in its 2011 World Energy

Outlook as a mixture of hydrocarbons that exist in liquid phase under normal surface
conditions. Unconventional oils are defined as those oils obtained by unconventional production
techniques because they cannot be recovered through pumping in their natural state from an
ordinary production well without being heated or diluted.

The U.S. Department of Energy divides unconventional oil into four types: heavy oil,
extra heavy oil, bitumen, and oil shale. Some analysts also include gas-to-liquids (GTL)
processes for converting natural gas to oil and coal-to-liquids (CTL) processes for converting
coal to oil in the unconventional oil category. These unconventional oil-processing techniques
broaden the feedstock of unconventional oils to include unconventional natural gas, such as tight
gas, shale gas, coal-bed methane, and methane hydrates.

GTL processing entails converting natural gas and other simple gaseous hydrocarbons
into more complex petroleum products. Methane-rich gases are converted into liquid synthetic
fuels through direct conversion or through syngas as an intermediate using the Fischer Tropsch
or Mobil processes.
CTL processing entails liquefaction of solid coal. This can be done directly by dissolving
coal in a solvent at high temperature and pressure and then refining these liquids to yield high-
grade fuel characteristics. Indirect liquefaction gasifies the coal into a mixture of hydrogen and
carbon monoxide (syngas), condensing this over a catalyst and using the GTL processes to
produce liquid petroleum products

Defining unconventional oil

1. Oil sands
Generally consist of extra heavy crude oil or crude bitumen trapped in unconsolidated
sandstone. These hydrocarbons are forms of crude oil that are extremely dense and viscous, with
a consistency ranging from that of molasses for some extra-heavy oil to as solid as peanut
butter for some bitumen at room temperature, making extraction difficult. These heavy crude oils
have a density (specific gravity) approaching or even exceeding that of water. As a result of their
high viscosity, they cannot be produced by conventional methods, transported without heating or
dilution with lighter hydrocarbons, or refined by older oil refineries without major modifications.
 2. Tight oil,

Including light tight oil (sometimes confusingly the term 'shale oil' is used instead of
'light tight oil') is crude oil contained in petroleum-bearing formations of low permeability,
often shale or tight sandstone. Economic production from tight oil formations requires the
same hydraulic fracturing and often uses the same horizontal welltechnology used in the
production of shale gas. It should not be confused with oil shale, which is shale rich in kerogen,
or shale oil, which is synthetic oil produced from oil shales. Therefore, the International Energy
Agency recommends to use the term "light tight oil" for oil produced from shales or other very
low permeability formations, while World Energy Resources 2013 report by the World Energy
Council uses the term "tight oil"

3. Oil Shale
Oil shale is an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing significant amounts
of kerogen (a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds) from which technology can extract
liquid hydrocarbons (shale oil) and combustible oil shale gas. The kerogen in oil shale can be
converted to shale oil through the chemical processes of pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal
dissolution.

4. Thermal depolymerization

Thermal depolymerization (TDP) has the potential to recover energy from existing
sources of waste such as petroleum coke as well as pre-existing waste deposits. This process,
which imitates those that occur in nature, uses heat and pressure to break
down organic and inorganic compounds through a method known as hydrous pyrolysis. Because
energy output varies greatly based on feedstock, it is difficult to estimate potential energy
production. According to Changing World Technologies, Inc., this process even has the ability to
break down several types of materials, many of which are poisonous to both humans and the
environment

5. Coal and gas conversion

Using synthetic fuel processes, the conversion of coal and natural gas has the potential to
yield great quantities of unconventional oil and/or refined products, albeit at much lower net
energy output than the historic average for conventional oil extraction. The four primary
conversion technologies used for the production of unconventional oil and refined products from
coal and gas are the indirect conversion processes of the Fischer-Tropsch process and the Mobil
Process (also known as Methanol to Gasoline), and the direct conversion processes of
the Bergius process and the Karrick process