Oil-shale projects are going ahead in Utah — for now

"It's not an investment we're making to capitalize on any short-term or long-term fluctuations in the price of oil, because no one can predict the price of oil," Boyd said. "Our research and development commitment is a long-term commitment, and we are continuing it regardless of the price."

Boyd said Shell, which has oil shale operations in Colorado but not currently in Utah, would wait for at least 10 to 15 years before making a decision about commercial-scale development of oil shale.

In Utah, most companies have looked at oil-shale development as a long-term investment, said Laura Nelson, vice president of energy and environmental development for EcoShale, a subsidiary of Red Leaf Resources Inc., headquartered in Salt Lake City. She said the previous decline of oil-shale development in the 1980s in Utah was mostly due to "lack of a federal regulatory framework" rather than falling crude prices.

But U.S. policies that discourage fuel purchases from heavy-polluting sources are further reducing incentives to exploit oil sands, and a U.S. law enacted in December bans federal agencies from buying fuels that cause more emissions than alternatives. Crude oil produced from tar sands creates triple the amount of greenhouse gases than conventional wells, according to federal data.

Ryan Todd, investment analyst for Deutsche Bank AG in New York, said frozen credit markets and less access to capital would make it difficult for all but the largest companies to undertake any new development. Because oil-sands technology has proven to be viable and profitable, that segment should be able to prosper economically even at the current relatively low prices, he said.

However, oil-shale development has not yet proven to be viable and would require much higher crude prices to prosper in the current economic environment. There are currently no commercially viable oil-shale technologies on the market, he said.

And development of both tar sands and oil shale might face more challenges under a newly elected White House administration.

"I would imagine that since neither oil shale nor oil sands are particularly low carbon-emitting technologies, that under a new administration they would be more likely to be penalized than they would be helped," he said.

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