Oil shale samples from Huadian were retorted in a stainless-steel cylindrical retort under argon atmosphere to determine retorting temperature effect on the product yield and characteristics of shale oil and non-condensable gases produced. Increasing temperature from 430 degrees C to 520 degrees C improved both oil and gas yields, but reduced the oil/gas yield ratio. Raising temperature increased nitrogen content in the derived shale oil and decreased the atomic H/C ratio and oxygen content, but had no significant effect on the sulfur content. It was also noticed that the boiling point of shale oil generated at 490 degrees C was lowest, and the shale oils obtained at 430 degrees C and 460 degrees C showed similar boiling point distributions. The produced shale oils had similar atomic H/C ratio as well as higher light oil content compared to crude oils produced in China, and could be classified as sweet and high-nitrogen oil in terms of the classification method of crude oil. The oil derived at 490 degrees C contained the lowest amount of saturates and the highest amount of aromatics, asphaltenes and non-hydrocarbons. C-1-C-4 hydrocarbon gas contents rose with increasing temperature. Higher ethene/ethane, propene/propane, butene/ butane and alkene/alkane ratios obtained at higher temperature were linked to secondary cracking reactions. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V.