BLM Oil Shale

Special leases would give industry ability to test technology southwest of Meeker

Editors Note: The Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA) released its comments that it submitted to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on BLM’s Oil Shale PEIS.  BLM has not provided the public with access to the public comments on oil shale.  Accordingly, the CRE will be utilizing its Oil Shale IPD to provide the public with access to the public comments it obtains.  The CRE also encourages the public to utilize the Oil Shale IPD to publish comments that have been submitted to BLM.  The Oil Shale IPD will provide the transparency to the Oil Shale PEIS  process that BLM has been denying the public.

MEEKER, Colo. – As part of an ongoing commitment to encourage industry to develop technologies that could lead to economic and commercial viability for oil shale development, the Bureau of Land Management has released for public review a preliminary environmental assessment for two proposed oil shale research development and demonstration leases in Rio Blanco County, Colo., about 35 miles southwest of Meeker.

ExxonMobil Exploration Company and Natural Soda Holdings Inc. have submitted plans of operations for the in-situ development of oil shale. Each proposed RD&D lease is a 160-acre tract with an associated preference lease area of up to 480 contiguous acres. The preference lease areas are reserved for possible conversion to a commercial lease, pending the results of the companies’ RD&D work and additional BLM review.

From: Bloomberg Businessweek

A small company that holds a federal lease to extract petroleum from oil shale reserves in western Colorado is taking a new approach to withdrawing crude oil from solid rock — one that it hopes will avoid groundwater contamination.

The process is “basically the same as steaming vegetables,” said Alan Burnham, chief technology officer for Rifle, Colo.-based American Shale Oil LLC.

Within weeks, the company will send a pool of oil down a well and blast it with hot fuel gas. The boiling oil will heat up an underground zone about 50 feet wide and 50 feet deep to more than 600 degrees.

From: Council on Foreign Relations

The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology held a hearing last week titled “Tapping America’s Unconventional Oil Resources for Job Creation and Affordable Domestic Energy: Technology & Policy Pathways”. I had assumed that the hearing would highlight attacks on Obama administration policies toward shale gas, shale oil, and Keystone XL, all of which have been prominent in the news.

So I was struck to read the testimony of Karen Harbert, a former Bush administration official, Presdient & CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21^st Century Energy, and a prominent critic of the Obama administration. Most of her testimony is about something entirely different: the prospect of developing oil shale in the United States:

From: CBS News

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead has told the U.S. Bureau of Land Management that he disagrees with the agency’s proposal to reduce the amount of land in the state available to possible oil shale research and demonstration projects by placing sage grouse areas as well as potential wilderness lands and areas of critical environmental concern off-limits.

The BLM proposes to cut the acreage available for the oil shale projects and research from 2 million acres approved by the Bush administration in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah down to about 460,000 acres, of which nearly 175,000 are in Wyoming. The agency is working on a draft environmental study and intends to make leasing decisions by this fall.

From: Aspen Times

GLENWOOD SPRINGS — Three towns in Garfield County have recently urged the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to take the most restrictive and conservative approach regarding leasing of public lands for development of oil shale and tar sands.

This is in contrast to the position of the Garfield Board of County Commissioners.

In comments sent April 9, the commissioners blasted the BLM for paying too much attention to what the commissioners called “anti-oil-shale and pro-wilderness groups” in the agency’s deliberations about the future of oil shale.

The Center for Regulatory Effectiveness (CRE) is concerned that Buruea of Land Management does not appreciate the invaluable role that the production of oil from shale would play in protecting America’s economic and national security.  Put simply, according to the United States Geological Survey, the amount  of US  oil in the Green River shale formation is equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves.

From: GAO

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions. This is an amount about equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves.

The Department of Energy released a report on the development of Oil Shale in the United States.  The report gives  a great overview of companies working on oil shale and the development of oil shale technologies.  The report is available in its entirety here