While Oceanyka's conventional oil reserves are numerous, they are smaller than those of countries like Saudi Arabia or the Soviet Union. On the other hand, it does possess enormous quantities of oil shale. This is a sedimentary rock containing hydrocarbons which can only be burnt as low-grade fuel in their standard form. A fairly expensive refinery process is required to manufacture shale oil, which can be used as standard petroleum. This price makes shale oil a non-desirable way to extract oil unless it is below the market price of standard petroleum. However, with the oil crisis in full swing, the economics of shale have become viable and they may remain that way for a long time; Australia's oil reserves are expected to dry out somewhere in the 2010s with Oceanyka's ridiculous consumption, and importing a thing as valuable as oil into the world's most dangerous continent is too expensive. Therefore, the technology is here to stay. The largest deposits have been found in north-eastern Australia, bringing forth a new wave of "gold rush"-like migrants into a fairly uninhabited region.
