The Green River Shale Formation does not contain crude oil that can be produced by drilling like the Bakken, Eagle Ford and Permian Basin.
It is “oil shale” rather than “shale oil”. (I know crappy terms). The Green River formation has to be retorted. The shale must be “cooked” so that Kerogen can be released from the rock. The Kerogen can be made into a synthetic crude oil.
It is not the same. It is far from the same economics and ability to produce.
Nobody said it was the same. The article below does show that A stretch of largely vacant federal lands in Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado may hold more recoverable oil than all the rest of the world put together. My point is also that Obama and the federal government are not allowing companies to produce on federal lands. The democrats are using these huge areas of lands more than a third of the U.S. land mostly for radical environmentalism(socialism/communism).As the article shows these lands are mostly vacant but they hold more oil than the rest of the world combined. Now this is just in this area of the West. that is not counting ANWR, off the coasts and even the Gulf of Mexico where they could allow even more leases than they are. the gov ran out most of the ranchers in Nevada, Bundy is the last one standing .and they burden all companies with crippling laws and regulations.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/energy/item/11387-the-green-river-formation-worlds-largest-oil-shale-deposits The Green River Formation — an assemblage of over 1,000 feet of sedimentary rocks that lie beneath parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming — contains the world's largest deposits of oil shale. USGS [U.S. Geological Survey] 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.
The Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization, estimates that 30 to 60 percent of the oil shale in the Green River Formation can be recovered. At the midpoint of this estimate, almost half of the 3 trillion barrels of oil would be recoverable. This is an amount about equal to the entire world's proven oil reserves. ...