Was asked to post this for a friend who doesn't have an account here, so before anyone asks, I know next to nothing on the subject matter. 
Basically, it's a matter of if Japan would bother looking for the oil, rather than whether there was the technology for it. In a world where Japan would have firm control over northern Manchuria far earlier than OTL, there is a high chance that if oil exploration was done, the oil would have been exploited.
New York Times reporter Hugh Byas estimated Japan’s Manchurian assets at $900 million in 1932, including an experimental plan for developing 5.8 billion tons of oil-shale deposits. In 1930, workers extracted 30,000 tons of heavy oil from crushed rock. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-17/japan-s-chinese-puppet-state.html
Shale oil production was estimated for 1941 at 1,000,000 tons. What is happening in Manchukuo oil shale industry is not known with certainty. The original plan was to relieve Japan's oil problem by intensive exploitation of Manchurian shale. Conquest of the Dutch Indies may have altered these plans materially. Oil from shale has been produced at Fushun in Manchukuo since 1930. Output had reached approximately 123,000 tons in 1936, and 350,000 tons in 1939. Estimated capacity according to blue print plans for 1941 was to be 500,000 tons. http://thetwentiethcentury.blogspot.ca/2013/06/1942-manchukuo-manchuria.html
The oil was described by a Russian naturalist and anthropologist who traveled in the area duing 1907-8 and had a book about the cultures released in 1912 (Russian only) the locals used the oil which was found in puddles on the surface as both heating but more importantly (for them) as a protection vs the enormous mosquito swarms that lived(s) in the area during the summer time.(they coated furs as well as the livestock in the oil when the swarms was most prevalent) The main problem was two fold 1) an almost complete lack of any infrastructure in the area and 2) the oil is very heavy and sulfur rich which means it has to be refine before it is usable for industry in anyway. Then of course there is the fact the area has a very harsh climate and a topography that is really bad too. In short the Japanese could in theory begin building the underlying supporting infrastructure in OTL from 1931 when they took over Manchuria, but it WILL take years before they get any meaningful extraction begun. Refineries being build and pipelines for the thick crude as well as water being build (thick crude demands an enormous amount of water to being refined, around 30 to 40 times the amount of oil being refined). http://forums.spacebattles.com/thre...-manchuria-in-1936.246384/page-2#post-9621198
Oil shale started production in 1929 in China (Manchuria Fushun) by the Japanese. 1 t of oil was extracted out of 25 t of rocks. In 1961 China was producing one third of its total oil from shale oil, but it is very difficult to find any reliable data on production on a long period. Ken Chew IHS (OAPEC-IFP 2005 seminar) provides this graph, where China is the largest producer of shale for oil/chemicals! http://www.hubbertpeak.com/laherrere/OilShaleReview200509.pdf
Oil produced in manchuria and korea during ww2 came entirely from synthetic oil production. The largest plant was the Manshu synthetic oil plant at fushin - using oil shale as a raw material - max production attained 2800 barrels a day or around 1 million barrel a year. Small synthetic plants under construction at kirin and chinchow in manchuria never produced any oil. In korea there were 2 more small synthetic plants at agochi and eian with a combined capacity of less than 0.1 million barrels a year. Note 1 ton oil equals 7.3 barrels. By comparison in japan proper around 2 million barrels of natural crude were produced annually during the war with another say 1.5 million max of synthetic product. The usa production in 1941 was 1400 million barrels - 700 times that of japan for natural product ! The dutch east indies produced around 65 million barrels in 1940 and max japanese production in 1943 for that region was 50 million barrels. At the start of war japan had built up a stockpile of 45 million barrels of oil related products. Witp data seems to overestimate production in japan,korea and manchuria. Mind you japan did have big plans to build up the synthetic oil industry at home - plants were never built because they required vast amounts of steel etc which were just not available. http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=992645
One of the things I found out about Japan is that they had a domestic oil industry that started in the 1890's, Nippon Oil and Hoden Oil were the two domestic firms. Standard Oil entered Japan's oil exploration field through a subsidiary called International oil but they sold out to Nippon oil in 1907. The Japanese wells / fields had a habit of drying up and needing new wells to drilled to keep up production. This lack of production stability and lack of long term over all growth is why Standard pulled out. By 1970 Japan had produced 176 million barrels of oil, production between 1920 and 1945 ranged between 1.3 and 2.6 million barrels year with 2 million barrels a normal year. Most of the production came from fields on Honshu with exploration on Hokkaido and Sakhalin; only Sakhalin got any type of real production going outside of Honshu it seems. It looks like 1916 was the all time high production year with 2,963,000 barrels. (Trek of the oil finders: A history of exploration for petroleum by Edgar Wesley Owen 1975 pgs 427-28 pgs 1516-17) http://warships1discussionboards.yu...ers-oil-in-Manchuria-in-the-1930s#reply-50632
The only reason I spoke of Japans total production till 1970 was to demonstrate that the while low there was sustained production. Also the Japanese had exploration and drilling experience; recall that the Japanese fields required constant drilling of new wells to maintain production. The Daqing Oil Field had an initial find depth of between 500 and 1,000 meters with some of the wells under 250 meters with some surface seepage occurring; later wells pushed mile plus depths. Nothing about the field to what I have read would be challenging in an exploration sense for the time period. The only reason it was not exploited sooner near as I can figure is that the area was in some form of chaos for most of the first half of the 20th century. Japan did put effort into Manchuria's coal and iron industry; they did open one oil field in Manchuria but that was done in the 40's (I believe) and not much effort was available to put into it. By the 1930's Japan had 40 years of oil exploration experience to draw upon and had been using sub surface geological mapping and exploration techniques as developed in the west. It would have been within there capability to map out and determine the rough size of the initial strike at least. Once this info was know it would be sure to bring more interest and resources from Japan to exploit the find. http://warships1discussionboards.yu...ers-oil-in-Manchuria-in-the-1930s#reply-50660
Japan hunted oil in Manchuria before World War II. In 1927 Japanese geologist found scattered asphalt in vugs of basalt and quaternary gravel deposits on the north western shore of Hulun Nur (lake), NW Manchuria. Geological Survey of China made a check survey of the area, and found the same asphalt in 1931. After establishment of Manchukuo, geological survey, tortion balance and refraction seismograph survey, and drilling were conducted during 1932-1941. One deep well (1,114m TD) and 21 core holes were drilled on the northern shore of the lake, but no potential oil were found. That the core hole drilled in Fuxin coal mine hit oil shows in 1938, led to extensive oil exploration program. Geological field party mapped a broad anticline located on east of Fuxin, and the core hole drilled on the anticline recovered some 30m thick sandstones (100-200m in depth) impregnating with oil. To explore this oil called on massive drilling campaign, and 47 or more wells were drilled on this anticline, but the reservoir quality was not good enough to establish commercial production. It is noteworthy to point out that the geologists engaged in Fuxin oil exploration thought that the oil came from Jurassic shales deposited in fresh water lake. In 1940 oil shows were found in the water wells near Chengde, and a one-month field check survey was conducted, and mapped a small anticline in Jurassic shales, but no further exploration was conducted. http://warships1discussionboards.yu...ers-oil-in-Manchuria-in-the-1930s#reply-50651
The Manchukuo Oil Monopoly
Daqing is significantly deeper (at around 850 meters) than most Japanese wells of that period from the Niigata and Akita regions. However, it is not very deep by the standards of the 1930s. The Japanese visited and imported oil from the Ellwood field of California where oil was struck at a depth of 3,208 feet (978 m) in 1928. During WW2, the Japanese drilled the discovery well of the giant Minas oil field in Sumatra which is at 2600 ft. The problem with finding oil at Daqing seems to have been that American (and Japanese?) geologists in the 1930s believed that oil developed only in shallow seas. Daqing had never been a sea and Li Siguang (T.S. Lee), who predicted oil at Daqing, was unusual in believing that oil could develop in lakes. http://www.wiki.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=3908012&postcount=67
Basically, it's a matter of if Japan would bother looking for the oil, rather than whether there was the technology for it. In a world where Japan would have firm control over northern Manchuria far earlier than OTL, there is a high chance that if oil exploration was done, the oil would have been exploited.
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