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The recent drop in oil prices is not likely to derail the push to develop shale oil deposits in the western United States, an oil executive says. Despite sagging crude prices and growing concern about the amount of water used to extract oil from shale, energy companies are forging ahead to exploit reserves on federal lands that last month were opened to production. "As long as we continue to be a nation that is hooked on liquid fuel, we need to look at anything we can do to tap the sources of energy in this country," Tracy Boyd, communications and...

The politics of controversial energy source may be about to turn -- againNEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The availability of billions -- and even trillions -- of barrels of potentially useable fuel has an inherently potent selling pitch.Case in point: oil shale in the Green River Formation lying beneath parts of Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. Oil shale is one energy pocket where the U.S. is actually king, holding more undeveloped oil-shale resources than any other country in the world. Last month, the Bureau of Land Management announced final rules creating a commercial oil-shale program that could eventually squeeze hundreds of billions...

US Minerals Management Service Director Randall Luthi on Tuesday said the agency would likely have regulations concerning several of its policy priorities, including increased oil and gas drilling, drafted before the Bush administration leaves office January 20. A new draft five-year plan for offshore leasing, including areas that were off limits to drilling until September, as well as final regulations to govern alternative energy development in federal waters are likely to be released before President-elect Barack Obama takes office January 20, Luthi said. Luthi will leave his position that day as well. After a bruising partisan fight, in September Congress...

The Bush administration gave energy companies steep discounts in the royalties they will be required to pay as it established the groundwork last Monday for commercial oil shale development on federal land. Interior Department officials said the 5 percent royalty rate during the first five years of production was needed to spur drilling while still giving taxpayers a fair return. But that rate is much lower than the 12.5 percent to 18.8 percent the government collects from companies harvesting conventional oil and gas on public lands. “In the short run, the American economy will continue to rely on oil and...

10. Land use -- Review executive orders concerning the Antiquities Act designations of lands by the government. Under Bill Clinton, millions of acres of lands were locked up by executive fiat and, because these actions were not established by law, they can be undone by executive action of a subsequent President. 9. Oil drilling -- Continue to push the Outer Continental Shelf planning process so that newly opened OCS acreage can be leased for future oil drilling. 8. Oil shale leasing -- Issue the final leasing regulations for oil shale leasing in the Western United States. Without these, the U.S....

Shell has failed to find viable oil shale reserves in Jilin province in northeastern China after three years of exploration and may be withdrawing from the project. A pullout from the Jilin project could discourage more foreign investors from entering oil shale projects, which would prove to be a significant setback to China's encouragement of foreign investment in unconventional oil as domestic production of conventional crude oil stagnates. "We haven't found oil shale (in Jilin) which has the proper thickness for our technology," spokeswoman Liu Xiaowei said. Shell is currently in talks with partner Jilin Guangzheng Mineral Development Co. on...

With the expiration of US Outer Continental Shelf and oil shale leasing moratoriums a day earlier, US House Republicans asked Interior Secretary Dirk A. Kempthorne on Oct. 2 to identify steps Congress should take to ensure potential resources in reopened areas are developed soon. "We are concerned by media reports that radical anti-energy groups may, with the tacit support of the Democratic leadership, file a barrage of lawsuits to continue to deny the American people access to these vital sources of American-made energy," Minority Leader John H. Boehner (Ohio), Minority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) and seven more House Republicans said...

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado — Senate Democrats on Friday tried passing a bill that included language that would continue to prohibit the Bureau of Land Management from issuing final oil shale regulations. But that effort failed when the financial stimulus package, which would have contained the oil shale ban, stalled in the Senate on a 52-to-42 vote. The vote comes as the clock ticks closer to the expiration of the oil shale ban — often called the oil shale moratorium. It is slated to expire at midnight Monday. U.S. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., has been a vocal supporter of the ban and...

Oil shale production on federal lands in the West will be allowed to move forward starting Monday after Congress failed to re-enact a ban on finalizing a leasing program. But some Democrats warned Wednesday they may replace moratoriums as soon as Congress reconvenes in January. Congress' decision to let the moratorium lapse brought cheers from companies seeking to turn the rock deposits in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming into synthetic fuel. "It's good for the industry," says Jeff Hartley, a consultant to several Utah-based energy companies. "It's really good for the state of Utah." But Hartley argued that if the ban...

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R.-Ohio) said, “Sen. Reid’s move to reinstate the ban on oil shale energy production is an insult to the American people and yet another example of Democrats acting to make energy more expensive for working families and small businesses," in a statement released Thursday afternoon. "At a time when our economy is struggling, it’s outrageous that Sen. Reid would attempt to block efforts to open up responsible oil shale development, which would create good-paying jobs and help lower energy costs."

Reid tries to sneak oil shale ban back into legislation By Michelle Malkin  •  September 25, 2008 11:47 AM Sen. Jim DeMint’s office reports just now that Harry Reid is trying to sneak the oil shale ban — backed by House Democrats — back into legislation under cover of the bailout frenzy.Details: We’ve just been alerted that despite House Democrats relenting on extending bans on offshore drilling and oil shale in the continuing resolution (CR) appropriations bill, Democrat Senate Leader Harry Reid has decided to sneak an extension of the oil shale ban through as Congress fights over the financial bailout. Oil...

The US Bureau of Land Management issued a final programmatic environmental impact statement Sept. 4 to guide the use of public land containing oil shale and tar sands in three western states. Reactions ranged from applause to expressions of concern. The document, which BLM developed under Section 369[d] of the 2005 Energy Policy Act, amends 12 land-use plans in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming to set aside 1.9 million acres of public land for potential commercial oil shale development, the US Department of the Interior agency indicated. One of the next steps would be to complete rules to govern procedures for...

PetroChina Co Ltd, the country's top oil and gas producer, has started construction of an oil shale refinery in northeastern China's Heilongjiang province, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The refinery, located in Mudanjiang city, involves a total investment of one bln yuan, the agency said. The plant is designed to process 1.2 mln tons of oil shale per year and produce 100,000 tons of oil products.

Energy-poor Jordan said on Sunday it was in talks with Anglo-Dutch group Royal Dutch Shell on an agreement to extract oil from the desert kingdom's 40-billion-tonne oil shale reserves. "Negotiations with Shell to sign a deal to process oil shale in Jordan are nearing an end," said Maher Hjazin, head of the state-run Natural Resources Authority. "If our plans succeed, it would be one of the country's largest projects to help the Jordan become energy self-sufficient, with a possibility to export oil in the future." Jordan, which imports 95% of its energy needs and is struggling to meet growing needs,...

Oil shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock containing organic matter from which oil may be produced. The regulations would provide for a thoughtful, phased approach to oil shale development on public lands in the West. [Photo Credit: Argonne National Laboratory] WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Department of the InteriorÂ’s Bureau of Land Management today published proposed regulations to establish a commercial oil shale program that could result in the addition of up to 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil from lands in the western United States. In keeping with the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Mineral Leasing Act...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management today published proposed regulations to establish a commercial oil shale program that could result in the addition of up to 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil from lands in the western United States. In keeping with the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, the BLM is proposing regulations that would provide the critical “rules of the road” on which private investors will rely in determining whether to make future financial commitments to prospective oil shale projects. “As Americans pay more than $4...

Western oil shale becomes issue in La. Senate race By MELINDA DESLATTE A supply of oil sealed in rock out West is becoming a flash-point in Louisiana's U.S. Senate race, in a bid to gain the attention of drivers feeling the pinch of gasoline prices. Republican candidate John Kennedy said unlocking the energy source from oil shale - as much as 800 billion barrels of oil locked in underground rock in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah - could shrink the nation's dependence on foreign oil and could help ease prices at the pump. Kennedy, the state treasurer, said his Democratic opponent,...

Democrats control Congress, so Americans ought to be asking about their plan to lower gas prices. Let's hope their plan doesn't rest on solar, wind and geothermal, because planes, trains and automobiles don't run on electricity. They run on oil — mostly foreign oil — 97 percent of the time. Let's also hope the Democrats' plan doesn't rest on ethanol to break our dependence on foreign oil, because it can't. More on that later. Americans ship about $700 billion annually to foreign oil traffickers, and Democrats respond by shutting down America's own energy supplies. Now at the mercy of foreign...

WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, gave a floor speech on America’s energy policy today. Selected Excerpts of Inhofe’s Energy Speech “I believe that America is not running out of oil and gas or running out of places to look for oil and gas.  America is running out of places where the Democrats in Congress are allowing us to look for oil and gas. Again I ask, why should producing America's own resources be a partisan issue?  It shouldn't be, but it is.  The Democrats in Congress refuse to increase our...

Colorado, Wyoming and Utah have more oil in oil shale than OPEC. Everyone seems to know that by now, but here are six things you probably did not know about oil shale. 1) Did you know oil shale has a smaller carbon footprint than ethanol? When calculating the carbon emissions of the entire oil shale process, without the use of carbon capture technology, its total carbon footprint is about 7 percent larger than gasoline. But a peer-reviewed article in the February issue of Science calculates the entire carbon footprint of ethanol to be 93 percent larger than gasoline. The article...

WASHINGTON, DC –Today, United States Senator Ken Salazar declared victory for the communities of Colorado’s Western Slope. Efforts by Reps. John Salazar and Mark Udall and Senator Salazar will now ensure that language is included in the omnibus spending bill that will prohibit the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from issuing any final regulations for commercial-scale leasing of oil shale and from offering any commercial oil shale leases during fiscal year 2008. Senator Salazar was also able to work in language that specifically reiterates how important it is for the Department of Interior and BLM to cooperate more fully with...

The Bush administration on Tuesday released proposed rules administering commercial oil shale development on public lands in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming to provide "critical rules of the road" for investors. The rules would govern lease management and royalty payments should extracting kerogen from rock for further refining into fuel ever prove economically feasible - an open question given the likelihood of carbon taxes, lack of available Colorado River water and a host of environmental protection restrictions. The rules proposed by the Department of the Interior are part of an election-year push by Republicans to support development of oil shale, which...

Oil Development: In boldly announcing plans to unlock the crude in America's vast shale-oil reserves, President Bush is showing real leadership. Now only Congress stands in the way of a brighter energy future.Bush on Tuesday said he wants to remove all barriers to extracting the oil thought to be trapped in shale rock formations in a swath of territory encompassing parts of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. The quantity of oil to be found in this shale is almost unfathomable. The government conservatively puts it at 800 billion barrels. Other estimates say we have as much as 2 trillion barrels, though...

The U.S. Interior Department said on Monday it will propose regulations on Tuesday to establish a commercial oil shale program that could result in up to 800 million barrels of recoverable oil on public lands in western United States. The White House and many Republicans have called for a ban on oil shale drilling to be lifted to help alleviate record high oil prices. Congress temporarily blocked oil shale development in the Midwest due to concerns from environmentalists that oil shale production consumes large amounts of water and power, both of which are scarce in the West.

As if paying $4-plus for gasoline isn't bad enough, some of Colorado's political leaders seem bound and determined to spread pain at the pump to the cost of heating our homes this winter - and for decades to come. Ours is a beautiful state with an abundance of natural resources: silver and gold lured early pioneers, mountain vistas and ski slopes keep visitors coming year after year, and abundant energy sources fuel our economy and our way of life. Not long ago, political leaders of both parties understood that the energy sector is vital to the economic health of our...

Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB) is in the final stages of striking a production sharing agreement with the Jordanian government to explore oil from the country's vast oil shale, a senior official at the state-run Natural Resources Authority said Thursday. "We are about to complete drafting a production sharing agreement with Shell and expected to sign the agreement initially in September this year," NRA's assistant director-general for mining and petroleum, Hisham al-Rabi, told Dow Jones Newswires. The PSA needs the approval of the Jordanian government and parliament, he said. Shell is expected to invest more than $20 billion in the...

For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretaryJune 21, 2008 President's Radio Address   President's Radio Address  Audio  En Español       In Focus: Energy THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Americans are concerned about the high price of gasoline. Everyone who commutes to work, purchases food, ships a product, or takes a family vacation feels the burden of higher prices at the pump. And families across our country are looking to Washington for a response. The fundamental problem behind high gas prices is that the supply of oil has not kept up with the rising demand across the world. One obvious solution is for America...

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. I want to thank Secretary Kempthorne and Secretary Bodman for joining me. For many Americans, there is no more pressing concern than the price of gasoline. Truckers and farmers and small business owners have been hit especially hard. Every American who drives to work, purchases food, or ships a product has felt the effect. And families across our country are looking to Washington for a response. High oil prices are at the root of high gasoline prices. And behind those prices is the basic law of supply and demand. In recent years, the world's demand for...

Little Miss Atilla says: It's hard not to see all the obstructionism regarding energy development as a sort of Marie Antoinette approach to fuel transitioning: we should force conservation, force biofuels, force diesel. And we should do it on the backs of the poor and the middle class. After all, if someone can't afford a Prius: well, f*** 'em. And, by the way: those who are suffering from the dictatorships and authoritarian governments propped up by American fuel dollars? F*** them, too. Oh, if I did not mention it, Ken Salazar is an a**hole.

Skyrocketing energy prices are hammering Americans. Five years ago this week, gasoline cost an average of $1.43 a gallon at the pump; this week, it's $3.94. And home electricity averaged 5.43 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2003; it was up to 10.31 cents in December. The underlying cause, of course, is that oil, coal and natural-gas prices have all gone berserk - with no relief in sight. What to do? Individually, of course, most of us will start conserving - people are already driving less, buying more fuel-efficient cars, etc. We'll keep on finding ways to save as prices stay high....

A Real Energy Strategy for America: Shale Oil by Jonathon Moseley May 31, 2008 If shallow talk could solve America’s energy crisis, politicians in Washington would have all the answers. But Americans are still carrying a crushing burden while little changes. Fortunately, there are many real solutions available for the U.S. economy even if the politicians don’t seem to know it. America’s dependence on foreign oil is more than a threat to our economy. It has become a threat to America’s national security. American money is being funneled to America’s enemies around the world and is strengthening our enemies while...

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- You'd think this would be oil shale's moment. You'd think with gas prices topping $4 and consumers crying uncle, Congress would be moving fast to spur development of a domestic oil resource so vast - 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming alone - it could eventually rival the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. You'd think politicians would be tripping over themselves to arrange photo-ops with Harold Vinegar (whom I profiled in Fortune last November), the brilliant, Brooklyn-born chief scientist at Royal Dutch Shell whose research cracked the code on how...

Crude Mistake By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Friday, May 16, 2008 Energy: With the price of oil spiking above $127 a barrel, the search for scapegoats has begun. Some point to the Saudis, OPEC's No. 1 producer. Others blame the oil companies. We have a better candidate: Congress. As President Bush traveled to Saudi Arabia to ask the House of Saud to open the oil spigots a bit wider, Congress showed once again how clueless it is when it comes to energy policy. Underscoring its failure to grasp the nature of our current problems, the Senate Appropriations Committee on Friday...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- A boom of unprecedented dimensions is sweeping Canada's spectacularly scenic western province of Alberta, the Texas-sized territory with a population of 3 million that is home to a pair of world-class cities -- Calgary (population 1.2 million) and Edmonton (population 1.1 million). Most important today, though, is that Alberta is the source of the world's largest trove of tar sands, the sticky substance locked in rock that North American Indians have used for centuries to caulk their canoes but that also can be mined and processed into oil. Refining it makes sense if and when ordinary...

Oil shale may finally have its moment By Jon Birger, Fortune senior writer November 1 2007: 11:12 AM EDT (Fortune Magazine) -- Touring a drilling site on a dusty mountain plateau above Rifle, Colo., Harold Vinegar stops, grins and then announces out of the blue, "I love that smell!" No, the Royal Dutch Shell chief scientist is not referring to the crisp fragrance of the high desert air or the conifer scent wafting from the nearby stand of evergreens. Rather, it's the faint, asphalt-like aroma of oil shale - a sedimentary rock rich in kerogen, a fossil fuel that is...

Technology to draw oil from rock in Rocky Mountain states and other unconventional sources is getting another look from companies and the government as the demand for energy increases and supply tightens, especially in the United States.

An Alabama energy exploration company likely will transport Utah oil shale to Canada to test whether a new technology would allow the economic and environmentally acceptable extraction of a substance that could be turned into motor fuel, federal officials said Thursday. The Bureau of Land Management has issued a research development and demonstration lease to Oil Shale Exploration Co. (OSEC) that allows the company to submit a detailed plan on how it would remove the rock left over from a 1980s mining operation near Vernal. The company hopes a horizontal-kiln process developed in Australia to extract contaminants from soil will...

The controversy over drilling for oil on Bureau of Land Management property in the West got hotter, and more complicated, this week as the U.S. House passed an amendment that would bar the BLM from issuing commercial oil shale leases in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Sponsored by Mark Udall of Colorado, the amendment to the 2008 Interior and Environment Appropriations Bill prohibits the BLM from using public money to publish regulations for its commercial shale oil program, and from conducting leasing for shale oil exploration and drilling. That move came after Udall and Rep. John Salazar were turned back in...

The front-runner energy company in the effort to unlock oil shale in northwest Colorado has slowed down its research by withdrawing an application for a state mining permit. Shell spokeswoman Jill Davis said the withdrawal of a permit on one of its three oil-shale research and demonstration leases was done for economic reasons: Costs for building an underground wall of frozen water to contain melted shale have "significantly escalated." "We are being more cautious and more prudent," Davis said. "Because of the nature of research you have challenges. With that in mind, it is taking a little longer to build...

How large is this resource? In the Piceance Basin, an area of 1,100 square miles, the oil shale is over 1 million barrels per acre, or roughly 750 billion barrels of recoverable oil. If you extend outward to Wyoming and to Utah, it is 1.3 trillion. This is why you hear shale next to trillions, not billions or millions, of barrels. The Air Force in the 1970s looked at shale, tested it, and found that it was a superior liquid for jet fuel. Roughly 65 percent of the oil shale is liquid, which could go into jet fuel. The J-8...

Conservationists in Utah and Colorado are threatening to sue the federal government unless it protects a rare wildflower that grows in areas of oil and gas exploration. Environmentalists and plant experts said Graham’s penstemon, a relative of the snapdragon with brilliant lavender-pink flowers, was proposed for the endangered-species list in January 2006, but the Fish and Wildlife Service reversed course in December. Critics believe the reversal was a result of politics, not science. The flower lives only on oil shale outcrops in the energy-rich Uinta Basin between northeastern Utah and northwestern Colorado, which is rapidly being developed by energy companies....

Winter is barely behind us, and gasoline prices are already rising. Worse, experts predict more price increases are right down the road. This poses two problems. First, higher energy prices mean families have less to spend on other necessities. Second, most of the money we spend for fuel ends up overseas, often supporting countries that don't wish us well. To solve the first problem, we need to solve the second. More than 63 percent of the oil we burn comes from abroad. We must develop new domestic sources and reduce our dependency on foreign oil if we want to get...

Global Resource Corp. has, for the past four months, been running tests with microwaves on oil shale. After exposing the rock to the patent-pending microwave process, Global Resource collects the byproduct gases and heat exchanges them into oil and gases that do not convert back to liquids. The liquids range from C-14 to C-28 and up to 70% of the initial weight of the oil shale (depending on where the sample was mined) is gasified. The energy balance for this gasification is running at approximately $30 per barrel which produces Fractionalized Petroleum Products, as opposed to the bitumen that is...

Brazil's state-owned oil and gas company Petrobras signed Friday a memorandum of understanding with the Jordanian government to exploit oil from shale in the Middle East country. Petrobras currently produces 4,200 barrels of shale oil per day at a plant in Brazil's southern state of Parana. Oil shale is a sedimentary rock from which fuel similar to petroleum can be extracted. Under the agreement, Petrobras needs 24 months to study exploitation conditions in the block AUG21 in Jordan's Attarat field. The block AUG21 has a total area of 11 square kilometers and potential reserves of 1.7 billion barrels of shale...

RIFLE — Royal Dutch Shell needs a little more time to decide if it will proceed with a commercial oil shale project in western Colorado, a company official said Thursday during a Rifle open house. Shell Mahogany Project spokeswoman Jill Davis said earlier plans to make that decision by the end of this decade have been pushed back to shortly after 2010. “We just need a little more time to get our test projects going on the federal leases,” she said. “Those leases took a little more time than we thought.” It also will take Shell at least a year...

Energy behemoth Shell wants to build a temporary living quarters for 600 workers near its drilling site in Rio Blanco County as it dramatically ramps up oil shale operations on the Western Slope. The company discussed its plans for the "man camp" at a community meeting on Tuesday in Meeker, attended by scores of residents. Shell will hold similar meetings in Rangely, Grand Junction and Rifle over the next couple of days. The proposed camp, which needs county approval, would be next to the company's existing temporary living quarters at its private Mahogany oil shale test site near Meeker, which...

LONDON -- Major oil companies are playing a bigger role in the search for oil and gas from unconventional sources, consultants Wood Mackenzie said on Monday. The sector, including heavy oil, tight gas, coal bed methane and shale oil, is currently dominated by independent companies, which have pioneered development of these fuels in North America. But this is beginning to change, with big oil companies now expanding in this area as the rise in commodity prices makes it economic to exploit some of these resources. "With conventional non-OPEC supply expected to peak within the next decade and the difficulties in...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- A U.S. Department of Energy project has demonstrated the viability of a new technology that might unlock the nation's largest potential source of oil. Government scientists say the United States holds more than three-fourths of the world's estimated 2.6 trillion barrels of oil-in-place of oil shale, with 1.1 trillion barrels of oil equivalent believed recoverable in the richest single deposit -- the Green River formation of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming -- a volume nearly 50 percent greater than the conventional oil reserves of the entire Middle East. Oil shale contains a substance called kerogen that...

Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world - more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. Three companies have been chosen to lead the way. Test drilling has already begun Dear Reader, Five months ago, the U.S. Energy Department announced the results of a land survey It was conducted to determine the official amount of oil a thousand feet deep in the Rocky Mountains They reported this stunning news: We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves...

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Oil shale has never made an American company more than a nickel or two; quite a few, in fact, have lost countless millions over the last century trying to cook oil out of the rock. R. Glenn Vawter, who has worked as an executive for many of the losers, knows all that only too well. [R. Glenn Vawter, manager of oil shale projects for EGL Resources, in Colorado, where the Bush administration has spurred new development.] Oil shale’s many starts and stops have driven Mr. Vawter’s career but have also unsettled his family life, forcing 37...