Shale oil refining work to date indicates that satisfactory gasoline and diesel fuel meeting most of the petroleum specifications can be produced by thermal cracking of shale oil and low temperature treatment of the distillates. Treating losses are high because of tar acids and bases and olefins. A promising processing scherae has been developed by laboratory and pilot plant work for hydrogenating under mild conditions a shale-oil coker distillate which would produce high yields of premium quality products and at the same time remove sulphur and nitrogen as useful by-products. Because of its flexibility, thermal cracking offers an excellent processing step for preparing final or intermediate products and it fits well into the coker distillate hydrogenation scheme. Data presented cover exploratory refining operations and may indicate trends, but do not show optimum processing conditions, yields or products.