Abstract: There are two primary ways to mine oil shale, i.e. on-ground retorting and in-situ exploitation, the former is the traditional way for development of oil shale resources. Different ways should have their own parameter evaluation systems during optimizing the development target of them. In order to more rationally and orderly develop the oil shale resources, a new system for on-ground retorting was built by analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The parameters related to oil shale evaluation are selected and weight values assigned by AHP, then a scoring software which can mark the actual parameters is developed. The scores of each mine are obtained through multiplying the score values of the actual parameters and their weight values. According to the scores, all the oil shale mines across the country are evaluated at last. The results show that there are twenty-eight the best potential areas for on-ground retorting exploitation. They are North Bogda mountain oil shale mine, Fushun oil shale mine and the Danzhou oil shale potential mine, etc.

Key words: oil shale, on-ground retorting, parameter, weight coefficient, optimization